Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead and gulp down that coffee to wake yourself up. Please, don't mind us if you want to light up and enjoy that first nicotine rush of the day. And if you happen to be having a bad morning, we'll look away while you pop that Valium.

Ready now? We'd like to talk about drugs.

They're already calling these Olympics `the dirty Games', and not without reason. Seems a day hasn't gone by when we haven't driven past the athletes' village without seeing groups of weight lifters and hammer throwers trying to thumb a lift home (even though they could carry you home. And the car).

Sadly, we haven't seen the worst of it. The bigger drug epidemic is likely to take place after these Olympics have finished, and it won't be uncovered in any testing laboratory or courtroom. Instead, you will find it in the suburban gymnasiums, in the grounds of secondary schools, anywhere, in fact, where young men and women agonise over their physical appearance and are prepared to do anything to alter, enhance and improve their body shape.

We can't say we were not warned. In the lead-up to the Atlanta Olympics, Claire Sterk, a sociologist at an Atlanta university, decided to find out what impact the Games would have on her city's illicit drug culture. One drug dealer she interviewed had this to say about the anabolic steroid market: `The Games make the people get into sports. Like, more guys are lifting weights or shooting ball . . . I bet you, I'm gonna make some money selling this shit. If no-one buys it, I'll find some dope fiends who'll shoot up anything that can make them high. Heck, I don't care. Business is business.'

He didn't have to worry. He found a steady steroid customer base. `The methamphetamine and steroid market did not disappear once the Olympics were over,' wrote Sterk. `The drugs stayed.'

Three years ago, Craig Fleming, one of Australia's most highly regarded customs agents, won a Churchill Fellowship to study the illicit performance-enhancing drug trade in the United States. He found ominous signs that hosting an Olympics would lead to an influx of performance-enhancing substances. No-one seemed prepared to listen, and when he finally grew tired of banging his head against a bureaucratic wall, he left Customs, becoming the anti-doping manager for the Australian Olympic Committee.

No-one really knows just how many teenagers are out there using steroids and, given the enormous hype surrounding our gold-medal athletes and the rewards they will continue to receive in the years to come, how many more may be tempted to try them?