Could Drug Rehab Be Avoided By Standardizing College Athletics Testing?
Are college athletes “falling through the cracks” of the imperfect random drug testing programs in America’s colleges and universities? And if they are, could this be contributing to the soaring drug abuse scandals among pro athletes, most of whom came up through college sports? No one really knows, and meanwhile the parade of athletes into drug rehab continues unabated. College drug testing is intended to deter the use of drugs to help level the playing field and keep athletes healthy. But there’s no standards – college tests vary widely from school to school, including the number of athletes tested, the substances they are tested for, the quality of testing and penalties for failing. Colleges spend anywhere from $3,000 to as much as $160,000 a year on testing. And most tests are for street drugs like marijuana, heroin and Ecstasy, not performance enhancing drugs like steroids, which cost far more than street drugs to test for. Testing for street drugs is probably a positive aspect, h
