Steroid Testing our Teenagers – Hard to Believe

The statistics are startling. According to one recent national survey, 3.5 percent of high school seniors admitted to having taken steroids at least once. A summary report from New Jersey offers the following assertion: teenage steroid use has increased ‘from 2.5 percent among high school students in 2000 to 4 percent in 2002, according to a University of Michigan research study’. And in Texas, a number of studies of the last few years reveals equally high numbers of high schoolers reporting such use (most experts believe this issue is underreported also).

These numbers have lead three states to legalize the steroid drug testing of high school athletes. New Jersey has already begun the process while both Texas and Florida passed laws that allowed for the testing to begin this fall.

The random testing has seen great support from those who want to ensure that high school sports retain their initial intent and keep our children safe. It has seen great criticism from those who see this as an intrusion on civil liberties and inconsistent with our other methods for dealing with drug issues in schools.

And for the greater public, many are astonished that it has come to this. Drug testing our kids?

But consider the case of Barry Bonds who in essence has used these banned substances to break one of baseball’s greatest records. Somehow, someway he has actually beat the system. He now has baseball’s hallowed record for home runs and the publicity to go with it.

What message does that send our kids?

And in Texas where football is king and we need to envision a real world of “Friday Night Lights” there are the incredible stories of parents red-shirting their middle school son. Yes, these parents actually ask to have their children stay back and spend an extra year in middle school so that they will be more developed physically before entering high school.

Is it not any wonder that we might see teenagers attempting to bulk up?