Is Stanozolol legal in the United Kingdom?

Best known from the 1988 Olympics. Its only real medical record is long-term use in a rare swelling disease, where it works in a way that has nothing to do with muscle.

Stanozolol is the steroid most people can name and few people understand. Its medical use has nothing to do with what it is famous for.

How it works: Stanozolol is a man-made steroid built from DHT, a strong form of testosterone. It has a small chemical change that lets it work as a pill, and that change is what makes it hard on the liver.

Approval history: Was FDA-approved to prevent attacks of hereditary angioedema, an inherited condition that causes sudden swelling. Discontinued in the United States. A Schedule III controlled substance.

Licenses medicines for sale in the UK. A compound without a licence to be sold (a marketing authorisation) is an unlicensed medicine. The law only lets it reach people through a prescriber, under the specials scheme (unlicensed medicines made for one patient's needs). It cannot be sold as a research product.

The legal category above is how The Longevity Archive reads Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency listings for Stanozolol on the reviewed date. It is not a legal opinion. Rules change. Bringing a compound into the country, prescribing it and owning it can each be treated differently. Check with the agency before you act on anything here.

Check MHRA directly

Whether Stanozolol is banned in sport is set by the World Anti-Doping Code and by military rules, not by its legal status in the United Kingdom. Before you compete or get tested, look up Stanozolol by name on the Prohibited List, or look up a named product in Global DRO. Under the World Anti-Doping Code, category S0 bans, at all times, any drug-like substance that meets two tests. No other section of the List covers it. And no government health regulator anywhere has a current approval for it as a treatment in people. Many substances that are approved somewhere are banned by name in another section. So approval does not mean a substance is allowed in sport.

• WADA Prohibited List
• Global DRO (check a named product)
• USADA (US athletes)
• Operation Supplement Safety (US service members)

The rules you compete or serve under decide this, not this page.