For what its worth, the illegality is with the physician or professional (pharmacist, professor, etc.) who recommends DMSO for use as a drug (not to mention that such recommendation would be unethical and hence job-threatening.)
As an individual, you are legally entitled to pour anything you want on yourself as long as it is not specifically listed among the schedules of controlled substances (prescription and illegal drugs). You might also get in trouble if suicide is illegal in your state and you're pouring bleach or gasoline or some such into yourself. The FDA refused to approve DMSO because it has no clinical benefits that outweigh it's risks. It's a relatively dangerous substance - not in it's own right but because, as Garry says, it penetrates the skin with ease. It carries all sorts of things with along with it, like anything toxic on your skin, any impurities dissolved in the DMSO, and even bacteria and viruses (virii?). Plus it makes your breath stink like garlic - yeachhh. Cheers, Buck Garry wrote: If the NYT wrote it, it must be true, but this is the first I've ever heard of DMSO being either illegal or performance-enhancing. Far as I know, it's an industrial solvent that's a byproduct of the wood-processing industry. Hence the fact that Bill Bowerman's athletes in the '60s loved it. It penetrates the skin with ease, hence its use to carry other substances into the body. I can't imagine that the IAAF or IOC have ever looked at it as a substance to be banned. Didn't the FDA even refuse even to sanction its production as a "drug"? (I remember Oregon athletes of the era complaining that decision was based on bad science.) gh
