Student Athlete Drug Testing | Teen Ink

Student Athlete Drug Testing

May 18, 2015
By Amy_jo SILVER, Goodhue, Minnesota
Amy_jo SILVER, Goodhue, Minnesota
5 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Imagine this. One day, A girl let’s say her name is Susan. She comes to practice looking different. She has a deeper voice than normal and a faint outline of facial hair. The team comes to the conclusion after they see her being aggressive to the coach, that she’s using performance enhancing drugs. Using performance enhancing drugs was one of the things they weren’t allowed to use, as the contract stated that they had signed.Student Drug testing in High schools along with colleges have been a controversial topic for quite sometime. Some people say that student athletes don’t have to take drug tests and that they cost the schools a lot of money. But this will tell you why student athlete drug testing should be used in schools worldwide.

   

Random drug tests are one of the topics discussed when talking to people about it. I think random drug tests are supposed to keep students from thinking they can do drugs during a sport season. I mean do you want to chance possibly getting the tests back positive?     “Random Drug and alcohol doesn’t reliably keep student athletes from using it, In fact the mere presence of drug testing increases some risk factors for future substance use,” Oregon Health & Science University researchers state. A study called SATURN(Student Athlete Testing Using Random Notification) is the first ever, hoped for and randomized clinical trial to assess the preventive effects of drug and alcohol testing among high school student athletes. The start of drug testing was in the early 1990’s when schools wanted to control student drug use. That lead to to Supreme Court cases dealing with student privacy. Originally student drug testing was only for students that played a sport but in 2002 the courts decided to include all students who participated in an extracurricular activity that were competitive. In the rulings the courts stated that “...stopping student drug use was more important than privacy...”
      

The costs of drug tests were also a topic that came up while talking to people. Most drug tests for schools costs $15 to $35 per student, it adds up quickly but can be helpful to the schools to keep their students from using drugs to enhance their performance, I mean would anyone want one of their teammates to be using drugs to enhance their performance and wreck their career? No. Drug test can be mandatory in interscholastic student athletes based on reasonable suspicion only as The Sports Journal says. Schools must test for the appropriate illicit drugs and banned substances.
           

Schools should do student athlete drug testing because it keeps students from using performance enhancing drugs to increase the chances to :
Get an Athlete scholarship
Getting more playing time
I think even though it’s expensive, schools should have them. They could do fundraisers and other ideas like that to help cover the costs of the tests.
         

I decided to ask some people around my school whether student athletes should be drug tested or not,It was a mix of athletes and nonathletes. Here are some of the responses...


“Yes, They might feel pressured to use them(drugs) So they have a “perfect” performance” “If a student is committed to the sport, They should follow the rules” “If you can’t pass a drug test why would you even sign up for a sport?” “Playing a sport is a privilege, not a right” “Yes they’re playing for the school”


In my opinion is that I wouldn’t want one of my teammates to be running around on the field hyped up on drugs cause I mean do schools really want the reputation of having people using performance enhancing drugs? Most likely not. If that student is interested in playing that sport, they would try to stay healthy. Even though the tests themselves cost a lot of money the school could have fundraisers. That is why I think student athlete drug testing should be used in schools.



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