Drug Test and What a Joke It Is

High School Steroid Testing

http://www.guba.com/watch/3000134868/Steroid-Testing-in-High-School-It-Doesn-t-Work




Drug testing is needed to protect athletes' health and reduce the pressure to take substances to keep up with the competitors (Coakley 2009). Drug testing at all levels has been and continues to be a joke. The Olympic, NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and other major sporting organizations have never done a good job of dealing with drug testing. These leagues/organizations are based on image of the athlete, the athletes are the key to success and how their league will continue to grow. If it came out tomorrow that LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady,Peyton Manning, Derek Jeter, Alber Pujols, Sydney Crosby Alex Ovechkin, and Tyson Gay took steroids, the organizations that they fall under would be under huge amounts of scrutney. It would turn fans to what was going on, and proceed to let people think, they are doing it fairly. Drug testing hasn't and will continue not to help, and here is why.



http://www.albanyherald.com/sports/headlines/100860999.html?ref=999


http://www.mesomorphosis.com/articles/anonymous/drug-testing-and-sports-03.htm



The USADA (U.S. Anti-Doping Agency) mission statement and vision states three things:



1. Preserve the Integrity of Competition — We preserve the value and integrity of athletic competition through just initiatives that prevent, deter and detect violations of true sport.



2.Inspire True Sport — We inspire present and future generations of U.S. athletes through initiatives that impart the core principles of true sport — fair play, respect for one’s competitor and respect for the fundamental fairness of competition.



3.Protect the Rights of U.S. Athletes — We protect the right of U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athletes to compete healthy and clean — to achieve their own personal victories as a result of unwavering commitment and hard work — to be celebrated as true heroes.

("Our vision/mission," 2010)


The USADA is responsible for the United States programs that are involved with the Olympics and Paralmpic games. They test these athletes often, using urine samples that are "taken unnanounced," and athletes seem to pass 99.9% of the time. The IOC (International Olympic Committee) also feels the same way about drugs use in the Olympics, but only the are concentrated on all nations who compete for the Olympics. I find it funny that there are very rarely any athletes, especially the big name athletes that ever get caught, until after the fact, i.e Marion Jones.



The other major organizations such as NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL all drug test their athletes. All of the drug test are to be unannounced so that the test is at random. Until the Mitchell report was filed in 2007 for the MLB there were never any stories about athletes and their use of steroids. Over 100 players on the list were to have positively tested for PED's that we as the fan base never even heard about, until Conseco wrote Juiced. How man people do you think in the NFL or NBA or even the NHL tested positive for steroids that has been unsaid or undocumented. The 'Steel Curtain' of the 70's were to have said to been all on steroids, starting with big bad Jack Lambert. Guys in the MLB werent punished because steroids werent illegal, and dont count the NHL and NBA just because guys are skinnier and dont need to be as big, because you can almost count on there being plenty of athletes to have tested positve.

Sure, there have been a few players in the past couple years to have been tested positive, like Brian Cushing of the Houston Texans, David Ortiz of the Boston Redsox, as of late even Tiger Woods has had the finger pointed at him for steroid usage. A trend here and now is that athletes wont get caught cheating, they wont get caught using because of the technology is to far ahead in their advantages. There are too many outs for athletes to get using seroids.



Testing is ineffective because athletes are one step ahead of rule makers nd testers. By the time substances are banned and tests are developed to detect them, athletes are taking new substances that tests cannot detect or are not calibrated to detect (Assael, 2005, 2007b, 2007c; Bell, 2008; Sokolove, 2004b; Zorpette, 2000). Every steroid that is made is already a step ahead, they are growing in the sense of being undetectible. The question is, will there be a time where steroids will be completely undetectible and all athletes wont have to worry, or, will there be a super test that will detect anything and everything.



Lets see how serious some organizations are about steroid testing, and the whole fair and clean play act. Major League Baseballs Player Association has long been against blood testing. The current drug plan and labor contract run until December 2011, but the union has said it would agree to a validated urine test for HGH. The NCAA’s executive committee has approved cost-cutting changes in the drug-testing program.Future repeat tests will focus on sports and athletes at higher risk and eliminate the advance notice given to those schools and individuals facing additional tests.Ephedrine will be eliminated from all test samples, and future steroids testing at NCAA championships will target higher-risk sports (Press, 2010).



Its been made clear that drug testing isn't a huge priority to these leagues, image is everything and as long as they are more concerned with how they look now and not how their organization should look then they will continue to pretty much tell their athletes that they dont care just as long as they dont get caught. Which is damaging sport for now, and maybe in the future.






Coakley, J. (2009). Sports in society. New York, New York: McGraw Hill Companies Inc.



Press, A. (2010, August 17). Wada chief: mlb drug-testing program a joke . Albany Herald, Retrieved from http://www.albanyherald.com/sports/headlines/100860999.html?ref=999


Our vision/mission. (2010, November 11). Retrieved from http://www.usada.org/?gclid=CInEg-mqs6UCFYbb4AodlzI_Xg