Jose Canseco was arraigned Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Diego after being caught trying to smuggle the female fertility drug

Jose Canseco was arraigned Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Diego after being caught trying to smuggle the female fertility drug Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) across the border from Mexico last week.The self-proclaimed "Godfather of Steroids," who exposed baseball's doping culture with his 2005 book "Juiced," appeared before Hon. Magistrate Judge Ruben B. Brooks and was charged with Introduction into Interstate Commerce of a Misbranded Drug, a misdemeanor.
Canseco's next court date is Nov. 4 at 9 a.m.According to the criminal complaint, Canseco, a female driver and the female driver's "minor daughter" were stopped by Customs and Border Protection agents after entering California at the San Ysidro checkpoint Thursday. Upon inspection of their 2004 BMW, CBP agents found six vials of HCG and ten syringes in the center armrest compartment.Canseco was later detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials for nine and a half hours, his attorney Gregory Emerson told the Daily News, before Canseco signed a consent form that ICE agents could search his Los Angeles-area home as a condition of his release. Emerson said the agents found no drugs or steroids in Canseco's home.
HCG is considered a Schedule III controlled drug under the California Safety Code, according to a spokeswoman at the Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. It is not available in the U.S. without a prescription and the World Anti-Doping Agency bans HCG for male athletes. The complaint states that Canseco admitted to not having a prescription when he was stopped and was bringing it across the border "for his own use" because "he is currently on a hormone therapy plan because his testosterone levels are extremely low due to his past steroid use." He also said he was in Mexico seeking "inexpensive dental implant work."Anti-doping expert Dr. Gary Wadler told The News HCG is taken by steroid users who want to prevent "testicular atrophy" and by men who have lower than average levels of testosterone and sperm as a result of hard-core steroid use.Emerson does not believe that Canseco's latest legal hurdle will affect his connection to the perjury investigation of pitcher Roger Clemens, a former teammate of Canseco's. Canseco met with the FBI and federal agent Jeff Novitzky in April regarding the Clemens probe. Clemens testified before Congress in February that he has never used performance-enhancing drugs.