AMERICAN BOARD OF CRIMINAL LAWYERS

CON-CRET sponsored the 2009 USAPL National High School Powerlifting Championships in Killeen Texas on April 3-5. The event had over 350 boys and girls from across the country.

Over the three days, the common question raised by coaches and parents was; is creatine a steroid, is it safe and is it legal?

It is not surprising that these questions are in the minds of parents and coaches today.

With the lack of regulation in the dietary industry-anything goes and that leads to confusion, as one corporate insider said, " When it comes to dietary supplements, it is like the wild west and the bad guys know they don't have to take the sheriff seriously."

It is soley up to the individual companies to decide how they intend to promote their product and present it to the buying public. Disclosure of all the ingredients on the label is not mandatory, and that means you can find anything in the product unknowingly, like stimulants, additives, binders, fillers, excipients and extenders.

Some ingredients can be considered banned or illegal often hidden behind "patent pending" or "proprietary" claims. Other ingredients can cause allergic or adverse reactions, but when you don't know what is in a product than you can be at serious risk.

Companies create their own science, often with little back up or none at all and some efficacy statements are layered with creative language that can confuse any scientist. Hype marketing consume the individual in advertisements convincing people using their product wil produce explosive results-some too good to be true-some to the point of "pulp fiction".

Can it get outrageous, the answer is yes, an associate from a vitamin store said, " some companies in the US get away with everything. In Canada there are strict laws regulating supplements. The same product sold in this store may not be allowed on the shelf in Canada due to compliance. Everything must be listed on the label, and often that presents itself as a problem. Some ingredients are banned or unproven and companies fail to get approval."

The General Accounting Office recently completed a report on dietary supplement recommendations to the FDA. One conclusion, the FDA needs more resources and also needs to address reporting adverse reactions, product safety and availability of reliable information.

Up to now, reporting a death was about all that was required, everything was voluntary bya company-"it just doesn't make sense" eed a parent at the powerlifting meet.

What if an illegal or banned substance is found in a supplement? Confusion as to who is at fault-especially if the athlete is tested and fails. Governing organiztions, like the NCAA and other amatuer and professional organizations do not test products-they test athletes. Companies can opt to have an outside firm test their products and also randomly pull their products off the store shelf to test for contamination. Still, the individual is at risk, and the question remains, who do you trust? It happens every year, an Olympic athlete, professional athlete or college athlete is found to be "test positive". Even when the item was an over the counter supplement purchased at a vitamin store and found to be contaminated with a banned or illegal ingredient not listed on the label. Finger pointing resulting in legal challenges and countersuits, in the meantime the athlete is suspended-often in jeopardy of their scholarship pending appeals which can consume one's college career.

Most parents I spoke with at the USAPL event rely on coaches to lend them advice and what they can gather on the internet. They will also ask other parents if their child is taking supplements. In the end they realize that one thing is for certain, if their child intends to compete and pursue playing sports beyond high school, they will eventually take something.

Today's strength coaches, athletic trainers and conditioning coaches are more informed through professional member associations and trade journals. Sports nutrition is a very important issue and concern with everyone.

Athletes don't always eat right or rest enough. They are often under-recovered and not over-trained. Athletes also fall into the area of asking their bodies to perform more than they are capable of producing or naturally born to do.

Creatine, which is what this article is about is often misunderstood. Creatine is an essential nutrient to energize muscle cells and that includes the heart and brain. It is naturally found in foods we eat like meat and seafood and is sythesized by the liver, kidney and pancreas.

Creatine is a normal part of daily life, firing ATP billions of time a day to create muscle activity. You need it to survive. Unfortunately, Mother Nature expends in an average athlete only 2-3 grams per day. less in females. The amount of grams is typically calculated by body type, density and mass. It is not calculated by how hard y

Tribeca, Manhattan, New York City, United States of America

Tribeca East Historic District, Tribeca, Manhattan

This five-story Ita1ianate store and loft building extends fifty feet along the north side of Worth street and seventy-five feet on the east side of Church Street. It was constructed in 1859-60 for Samuel Wyman, a dry goods merchant who resided in Baltimore, as two buildings. With the adjacent structure at 69 Worth Street, which was built at approximately the same time, it appears to be part of a larger building. The three buildings share a tax lot. The Church street facade of the building is marble above the first story. It is divided into three vertical sections by quoins.

The end sections have two window openings each, while the center section has three. Characteristic of the Italianate style, the windows have molded surrounds and flat pediments, a treatment which was popularized by the design of the A.T. stewart store. Windows have two-over-two double-hung wood sash, although the northernmost bay of window openings has been blocked for an elevator shaftway. Sill courses, balustrades below the second-story windows, and a marble cornice further enhance the design. The original cast-iron storefront framing, seen in an historic photograph, has been replaced by stone piers and an entablature.

The Worth Street facade is divided into two sections by quoins and features the same overall design and articulation of detail as the Church street facade. It is visually continuous with the building at 69 Worth Street, and is part of the consistent architectural character of the streetscape.

The present building replaced four frame dwellings. In 1865 the building was occupied by Low, Harriman & Co., selling agents for the American Print Works. Later, it was occupied by W.C. Peet & Co. and A.D. Juilliard & Co., both prominent dealers in dry goods. Currently the ground floor is vacant, and there is office space above.

-- Description of the District---

The Tribeca East Historic District, which encompasses 197 buildings and four undeveloped lots, is located in the area bounded roughly by Canal Street on the north, Worth Street on the south, and Broadway and Cortlandt Alley on the east. Church Street forms much of the western boundary of the district, although blockfronts along Franklin and White Streets extend the district to West Broadway. The district extends east of Broadway, between Franklin and Canal Streets, to include buildings on the east side of Cortlandt Alley. While many of the district's cast-iron and masonry commercial buildings were erected beginning at mid-nineteenth century and continuing into the early twentieth century, when the dry goods district was located in this area, later buildings in the district — office buildings and banks — also served the textile trade.

The Tribeca East Historic District takes its name from the acronym TriBeCa, for Triangle Below Canal Street. Coined in the mid-1970s as the result of City Planning studies and the adoption of a Special Lower Manhattan Mixed Use District, the Tribeca name came to be applied to the area south of Canal Street, between Broadway and West Street, extending south to Vesey Street, which is larger than the zoning district. The Tribeca East Historic District has a distinct and special character within the larger Tribeca area defined by its many blockfronts of ornate store and loft buildings which reflect the district's role as the center for dry goods and related businesses in New York City.

During the decades after textile mills were established in New England with its abundant sources of water power, American textile markets began to flourish in New York City and other northern urban centers, where dry goods importers, general merchants, and rs were concentrated. As New York City developed as the country's major port and trading center, a dry goods district sprang up on Pearl Street near the East River docks. After the disastrous fire of 1835, these merchants were scattered to various locations around Pearl Street, in proximity to the South Street seaport. As commercial shipping interests switched to longer ships and steam boats, it was found that these vessels could not easily navigate the East River, and new piers on the deeper Hudson River prospered. Beginning in the 1850s, the dry goods merchants relocated to the area north and west of Broadway and Chambers Street, allowing competitors to be in close contact with each other and closer to the Hudson River piers, and offering buyers the convenience of a central marketplace. That area of the city was transformed into a new commercial center after the A.T. Stewart Store, the fashionable "Marble Palace" which housed the first American department store, was built in 1845-46 on the east side of Broadway between Chambers and Reade Streets. During the early 1850s the first stories of many earlier residences were converted to commercial use, and some two dozen