Simply because I was tired of hearing the argument that "even if Bonds took steroids prior to the testing era in baseball, he hadn't broken any rules", I sent an email to Lester Munson asking his opinion on the subject.

I respect Munson a great deal, and he was kind enough to respond to two emails on the matter.  He basically said that the only rule a player would have broken would have been a "technical violation regarding prescriptions" which the player could easily dance around.

I always held firm to the belief that there had to have been some sort of "illegal drugs" clause in the CBA prior to 2002.  Apparently, that's not the case.

Here's what he had to say about the union's stance:   "Steroids were not
addressed.  The union tried to argue that steroids should be treated as a disease,
a form of addiction, with treatment and confidentiality.  It was a ridiculous
position.  Steroids are not addictive.  There is no rehab for steroid users.  
We do not treat steroid users.  Steroids are cheating.  We do not treat
cheaters.  We expose them and we punish them.  It took the union and MLB a long time
to come to this fairly obvious realization."

Anyway, my apologies to anyone who(m) I may have contradicted with my errant thinking regarding this.