CRAIG Chalmers, the former Scotland and British Lions fly half, has expressed a fear that doping in rugby is becoming increasingly prevalent and called into question the response of Scottish Rugby to his son's misdemeanour.

Sam Chalmers, the first rugby player in Scotland to have tested positive for a banned substance, will return from a two-year suspension next month. His father fears his case could be the first of many and believes the national governing body should have done more to learn from the incident.

As Chalmers has acknowledged, Scottish Rugby does not operate its own anti-doping regime - it is run by UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) - but he has been baffled by what he sees as a failure on the part of Murrayfield officials to investigate why a young player took such drastic action.

"Sam will come back from this episode more mature and a wiser person from it but he's done it all on his own," Chalmers told Herald Sport. "He's had no help from anyone other than support from family and friends.

"To be fair, Melrose have been pretty supportive but they can only do so much. Scottish Rugby have shown no support at all.

"There's not been any kind of attempt to try to find out why Sam did it and that disappoints me a lot because he's young, he made a mistake and I think that if I were the head of a sport in a country and I'd seen what Sam had done, I'd be wanting to know why, and what made him do it."

Sam Chalmers, then 19, tested positive for methandienone and stanozolol in May 2013, while on duty with Scotland under-20s. Both are listed as anabolic androgenic steroids on the list of prohibited substances by the World Anti-Doping Authority. Chalmers Jr admitted to taking a pill called Pro-SD in an attempt to add bulk.

Chalmers Jr, currently in Sydney and preparing to return at club level, has done a considerable amount of work with World Rugby during his suspension, including appearing in an educational anti-doping video and talking to young players about his experience.

His Grand Slam-winning father, who coached Melrose after his playing career, believes his son is not the first player to have taken steroid pills in an attempt to make physical gains or merely just to improve their appearance, and fears he will not be the last.

"The thing with doping in rugby is that it goes on, I know it goes on," said Chalmers snr. "I hadn't really thought about it that much before Sam's case but then I began asking some people about the stuff that Sam had taken and they seemed to say that it was very common."

Chalmers' claim that doping is prevalent in rugby is not unfounded. Of the 48 people currently on the UK Anti-Doping list of sanctioned individuals, 27 originate from rugby; 18 of them coaches or athletes from rugby union. Last year, Ian Ritchie, the chief executive of England's RFU, admitted that the sport had an issue with drugs that needed to be urgently tackled.

The newly appointed chief of UKAD, Nicole Sapstead, promised recently to examine the worrying increase in teenage steroid use in sport and said one of her prime objectives would be to focus on the increased use of steroids by aspiring athletes in rugby.

"I suspect that many people take

this steroid because they want the gains," Chalmers says. "So I think I'm much more aware now of what's happening and what's going on in the game. I've become a lot more aware of the issue because of Sam.

"There's always the worry there. Especially with these amateur players - these guys don't get paid, they're working all day and then they come training at night. Clubs are good with having lists of banned substances but players don't read it," he said. "If you're in the national squads, then you get talks about different substances. Sam never had any of these talks about what you can and can't take.

"Unless you're in the [senior] national squad, then you get talks about different substances but Sam had never had any. The clubs, especially in the top league, need to be more aware."

Scottish Rugby replied: "Scottish Rugby is fully committed to the fight against doping in sport, to protect the integrity of the game. Drug Testing in Scottish Rugby is carried out on its behalf by UK Anti-Doping as part of the UKAD programme, in accordance with World Rugby and World Anti-Doping Agency guidelines. "[We] also recognise the importance of education to establish an environment which influences doping free behaviour among players, and will continue working to develop players' knowledge on the repercussions of banned-substance use."