Overshadowed by headlines from the federal investigation into steroids distribution at a San Francisco-area laboratory is a little known fact: The U.S. already has criminal laws governing the use of steroids, but they are almost never applied to elite professional or Olympic athletes.

Instead, the steroids users police are far more likely to bust are men who never compete in any sport but work out in local gyms to look good when they take their shirts off. The major U.S. sports sanctioning bodies -- some of which regularly snare athletes with urine tests to screen for steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs -- say they don't generally turn information about violations over to law enforcement agencies.

The sanctioning bodies say they know of few, if any, steroids arrests among their athletes over the past five years. No Olympians. No pro baseball players. No pro football players...

"For all the hand-wringing about steroids in sports, the guys who are getting put in handcuffs are the gym rats," says Rick Collins, a Carle Place, N.Y., attorney who specializes in defendants charged with steroids violations.