High School Athletes Take Drugs

Rains, B. (2009). Testing Student Athletes for Drugs is Appropriate. In C. Watkins, Sports and Athletes (pp. 192-196). Detroit: Greenhaven Press.

In high schools throughout the country, drug and steroid use is skyrocketing. In a recent survey, 35.1% of high school seniors said that they have smoked pot within the past year, nearly 44% of students know someone who sells drugs (The Recovery Village), and 6% of athletes have used steroids; even that number is predicted to be much higher (Global Sports Development). Many of these students are also participating in sports or other activities. Drugs and steroids provide an unfair playing field in high school sports, and in all levels of athletics. Drug use is a pervasive issue in today’s premier leagues of sports, whether it is the Olympics or the NFL. It seems as if not a day goes by where we don’t see a headline about an elite athlete being busted for drug use; why don’t we have the same protocols being used in high school sports? This is why we should have mandatory drug testing for high school athletes. We will begin by discussing why this is currently a problem in our schools, then we will look into the causes of the problem and how we as a society have contributed to it, and finally we will review potential solutions to the problem.

Athletes using performance enhancing drugs has been a problem since the late 1990’s. For the athletes the use of steroids are cheap, easy to access, and effective; that is until now. Collegiate Student Athletes should be drug tested every season for illegal substances before they are allowed to play. There are many reasons why these athletes should be tested, such as the negative effect steroids have on their bodies, the drugs are illegal to use, and if caught using these drugs the athletes careers could be over.

Student athletes should always be required to take a drug test because it can affect their sports. Student athletes could be ruining their chances at getting a scholarship for sports. If any

Over the past couple of years drugs have grown within the younger generations. Nearly one in five teens have taken prescription medications to get “high,” according to a recent study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (Carroll 23). Most schools that put mandatory drug testing in place are schools that had, and still have, drug problems within their schools (Yamaguchi). These are few examples of mandatory drug testing in high schools athletics and why it is needed across the country.

According to a new study in Minnesota, about 20% of middle school and high school students have used an antibiotic steroid. A student who played football went to the pharmacy to get a refill on his prescription of steroids, the night of the last football game of the season. He asked if they upped the prescription, and they did. As he was taking the steroids his coach walks in the locker room, and saw him swallow them. He knew the coach had to tell the board to the college of his dreams, The University of Alabama. They took away his full ride scholarship, and he later on had health issues. High school athletes should be tested for performance enhancing drugs because it's illegal, it is considered cheating, and it can causes health issues. The

When it come to drugs now in 2016, there are many people around us that we don't know are using them. Sports such as, tennis, soccer, basketball, football ,etc. are definitely competitive. There is an absolute necessity for schools to include drug testing programs for the safety and fairness of their students, but one of the problems schools face if the lack of funds.

I believe that competetive sports are not benifitial for children and adults. Playing competetive sports can lead to having drug abuse problems, serious injurys and being an serious debt.

Teenagers everywhere use drugs. They are using them in school too. Students also use them to perform better in High School athletics. They mainly use a type of drug called steroids. They are not healthy for you if you are not prescribed for them. They are also illegal. It also makes a disadvantage to other athletes. If schools don’t know that their athletes are using drugs, their health will get worse and make extreme disadvantages to the other players. High schools need to know if their students are using drugs. That is why there should be mandatory drug testing in high school athletics.

In a 2004 Newsweek article, it was estimated that in the previous year 300,000 teens between the eighth and twelfth grades had tried steroids. ( Author Last Name ) Drugs are bad for athletes because it is cheating in a way because your are going to be more enhanced than their opponents. performance- enhancement drugs are chemicals that can improve a person's strength, endurance, or recovery from vigorous exercise. There are lot of athletes that use performance drugs and it has ruined their career these are just examples barry bond, lance armstrong, sammy sosa. Therefore using performance drug are bad and will most of the time cause in destruction of your career.

Yes, In my opinion I think high school athletes should be tested for performance-enhancing drugs. You are probably thinking,"Why?", well I'm going to tell ,why?. Well Lots of athletes are using drugs and they need to stop because that can make bad things happen in their body and it can also ruin their lives. According to my research "Today High school student athletes are using drugs to enhance performance in record numbers. Experimentation with human growth hormones by America’s teens more than doubled in the past year, as more young people looked to drugs to boost their athletic performance and improve their looks, according to a new, large-scale national survey.

Sports bring in much needed revenue to high schools, so administrators don’t want students not able to play due to drug abuse. They don’t want parents and the community to ask questions about why players are sitting when they would normally start. So they figure if they pretend it doesn’t go on in their school they don’t have to deal with it. It is unacceptable that student athletes that abuse HGH or marijuana get off scot free while other athletes have to sit and watch. The main problem is that the students that use these drugs are commonly the most played, so coaches and fellow teammates certainly won’t snitch in fear of the team’s record. This would be avoided if athletes knew going into the season that they would be randomly drug tested throughout the sport’s duration. It would cut down the percentage of teenagers abusing drugs tremendously in my opinion. As of around December of 2016 it was recorded that around 14.3% of 12th graders abuse some type of marijuana (National Institute on Drug

     The last reason why drugs should be banned in sports is because of the many teenagers that are abusing them. According to the National Institutes of Health, a half- million kids under the age of 18 are abusing steroids. It seems that we’re raising a generation of individuals destined to be highly aggressive or severely depressed. Most teenagers do not know the effects that steroids can cause. They lower good cholesterol and raises bad cholesterol. That gives users a better risk

Drugs are unfair to players who don’t use them. Players who use them get stronger, faster, bigger, wider. They get more body weight and it’s harder to push you. People can hit way harder and hurt people and you’re harder to tackle.

On the other side of this. Kids are happy with themselves and they know the consequences of what drugs do. They want to keep their body healthy. Kids also don’t have enough money too buy drugs because they have to help pay sports cost, college funds, and many other expenses. Kids want to stay on their team and not do drugs. That is a great thing and we hope it grows into larger