homowner Essays - Drug Control Law, Doping In Sport, Drug Test

Random Drug Testing of Athletes In January of 1996, six months after the United States Supreme Court ruled that it was appropriate for Oregon?s school district 47J in Vernonia, to require student athletes in middle school and high school to participate in random, suspicionless drug tests, one percent out of the 16,000 schools in the country had brought the random drug testing into their facilities. (Taylor, Robert) Even though the Supreme Court ruled this way, they did not feel that this testing was a good idea. There had to of been some reason for this. (Bailey, William) If only one out 16,000 schools pick up on drug testing as a good idea, then there is more than likely something that the schools don?t think is right with it or they are unable to do it for some reason. Research shows that drug testing of public school athletes is not a good idea because it singles out athletes from all of the students in the school and suspects them of using drugs it is also a waste of time and money, and consists of low accuracy tests that so not always give the correct results. There is evidence that shows that students who are involved in athletics are no more likely to use drugs than any other people in the student body. (Bailey, William) There should be a reason for the schools to single out athletes from the other students for drug testing. The only appropriate reasons for treating athletes differently by giving them drug tests would be if they more likely to use drugs than other students, they were at greater risk of using drugs, the use of drugs being riskier to them, or that the tests will be more likely to come back positive for athletes. It is true in some schools across the United States, that athletes are more likely to consume alcohol at a weekend party, but if a urine sample were taken the following week, it would come back clean. So this testing would only be a waste of time and money. Student