Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who admitted to using steroids as a champion bodybuilder throughout his career, said he doesn’t regret using the performance-enhancing medications.

Even knowing what he knows today about the drugs, the seven-time Mr. Olympia winner told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that he would have used them anyhow.

“I have no regrets about it because at that time it was something new that came on the market and we went to the doctor and did it under doctors’ supervision,” he said. “We were experimenting with it. It was a new thing. So you can’t roll the clock back and say, ‘Now I would change my mind on this.’”

However, the governor of California told ABC News that he would not encourage people to use drugs.

“Because it is the wrong message, like you say, to the children,” he explained, adding, “But people should take food supplements, people should be able to take the vitamins and all of the nutritious stuff that is available, but stay away from drugs.”

Schwarzenegger has stated that he wants to see bodybuilding “cleaned up up” so that it can be viewed as a respectable sport by others.

“It says ‘bodybuilding,’ not ‘body-destroying,” he said.

His remarks come only days before a US court hears the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroid controversy. Mr. Schwarzenegger defended his decision to veto a law requiring high-school coaches to teach about the hazards of steroids and illicit substances, claiming that the bill confused dietary supplements with criminal narcotics.

“It’s ludicrous to forbid this for a student to take. Because if you take a protein food supplement that is made out of milk protein, out of milk, or out of soybean, or out of liver or fish that has maybe 90 percent protein, they will enhance your performance, because that’s what you need in order to get strong, is protein. Why would that be outlawed? It comes from a natural source. Or to take vitamins — Vitamin E gives you more energy, so therefore it is enhancing your performance.”