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Steroid testing in high schools

With the recent news of widespread steroids use in Major League Baseball and Olympic events, state legislators and administrators want to adopt programs to test for steroids. And aside from these highly publicized steroid-related controversies in professional sports, many high school and state authorities are growing concerned with statistics of anabolic steroids use among students. One such statistics is by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), a group that regularly monitors drug usage. NIDA’s 2004 statistics show that about 3.3% of high school seniors have reported using anabolic steroids.

However, only a handful of states are able to implement testing on steroid use among high school student-athletes. The primary obstacle, according to state authorities, is the expenditure issue. The cost of a steroids test can vary from $100 to $200 and would include just the most common varieties of steroids.

The New Jersey Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJIAA), for instance, has to put aside $100,000 to randomly test 500 athletes during state championships.

“We only had one athlete who tested positive last year among the 500, and I didn’t expect anything more,” said Bob Baly, assistant director for the NJIAA. “Our tests are not designed to catch student-athletes but to deter them from steroid use. It has been a good tool for us.”

However, some are not as optimistic as Baly.

“At the high school level, testing for steroids can be very expensive,” says Bruce Howard of the National Federation of High School Associations. “Steroids are the drugs in the news, but some of our surveys say steroids are far from the worst high school problems. Alcohol is still way up there.”

New Jersey is one of a handful of states that have instituted policies and programs for random steroid testing in high school institutions. Illinois is the latest addition to this roster of states, which also include Texas and Florida. Thus, in the fall high school athletes in Illinois will undergo random testing during playoffs. However, unlike Illinois the testing programs in New Jersey, Florida, and Texas have been initiated by their respective legislatures.

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