A shot of steroid reality

May 07, 2007

Steroid abuse has trickled down from professional sports to high schools, so the Legislature had little choice but to pass a bill that creates an experimental drug-testing program for Florida's student-athletes.

Under one of the first programs in the nation of its kind, about 1''percent of weight lifters, baseball players and football players would be tested randomly during the next school year. A positive test would result in a 90-day suspension from sports but would not bring criminal charges or affect academic standing. Students and parents would have to sign a form consenting to participation in the testing before athletes could compete.

Privacy concerns are outweighed by clear evidence that the use of performance-enhancing drugs is putting more and more young people at risk. Coaches see players who add 40 pounds or more during the summer and know that it didn't happen naturally. In 2004, a state survey found that about 19,000 middle and high school students, 1.4 percent of the total enrollment, admitted using steroids. Besides peer pressure, the pressure to get college scholarships has caused abuse to grow. Testing is a reasonable deterrent.

Fortunately, legislators refused to get caught up in the politics of athletics when Sen. Daniel Webster, R-Winter Garden, abandoned, at least for this year, an attempt to create a separate athletic association for private and parochial schools. Sen. Webster believes that he Florida High School Athletic Association is arrogant and biased against private schools. A more likely explanation is that the senator wanted to help private schools gain independence and an edge against the public system he often disparages.

Separate governing bodies wouldn't improve competition, lower costs or turn out better athletes. It also wouldn't cut down on steroid abuse. Testing offers the only chance of that.