HARTSELLE — The Hartselle High baseball team was tested for drugs Thursday after school officials found painkillers in the baseball complex. Lt. Justin Barley said Hartselle police charged two juveniles with illegal possession of a controlled substance. The students, both baseball players, had prescription medication that did not belong to them, Barley said. Barley would not say how many pills the students had, only that they were in the hydrocodone family.
Hartselle turned the students over to juvenile authorities. Because they are minors, officers cannot release their names. “We’re not expecting any further arrests,” Barley said. “These two will be what we have for now.” Hartselle head baseball coach William Booth was at the doctor’s office when the investigation started. He was not familiar with all the details of the matter and said school officials are handling the situation. Superintendent William Michael Reed said they decided to test the entire baseball team as a precautionary matter. If any of the players test positive, they are required to get counseling before returning to the baseball team or any other extracurricular activity.
Hartselle’s drug-testing policy, which is one of the toughest in the nation, mandates counseling but does not require the school board to ban the students from participating in baseball. “We take this seriously and will have zero tolerance,” board Chairman Dr. Andy Dukes said. He said the board intends to do what it can to ensure that other students do not get involved with this type of situation.
Reed said the degree of punishment will depend on the player’s degree of involvement in the matter. A student who tests positive, for example, may be disciplined differently from a student who is selling drugs on campus, the superintendent said. Reed said Principal Jerry Reeves will make discipline recommendations to the board. An anonymous call to Reeves on Thursday morning started the investigation, Reed said. The superintendent said he contacted School Resource Officer Michael Hudson who called Hartselle police after he found the prescription medication. Reed said school officials, with the assistance of Hartselle officers, searched every locker in the baseball complex. The illegal drugs were found in a backpack belonging to one of the players, the superintendent said.
An incident involving two baseball players led Hartselle to adopt one of the toughest student-drug testing policies in the nation. On March 4, 2002, two baseball players collapsed in school. Both students were carried to Hartselle Medical Center where one tested positive for marijuana use. The school system took no disciplinary action against the student in 2002 because the drug use did not occur on school property or at a school function. Had there been a drug-testing policy at the time, the school system would have been able to discipline the student. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that school systems could randomly test students who participate in extracurricular activities, Hartselle adopted a policy in September 2002. In the first year of testing in 2002-03, six students tested positive for marijuana use and 11 for nicotine. The numbers have declined each year. In the second year, for example, only one student tested positive for marijuana and one for amphetamine.
In the last issue of the DATIA newsletter, this question and answer was posted about parents testing children for drugs.
Question: I am having more parents bring their under age children to my clinic to have a drug test done. Am I allowed to do these tests without the child’s permission? Should I have the parent /child sign a waiver? I would like to know ASAP, as I have parents asking for these tests weekly. Would one alternative be to just sell the test to the parents?
Answer: The fact that the parent or guardian is bringing the child to you for testing should not pose a problem The sale of Point of Collection test devices at Pharmacies is really directed at parental testing and has not been challenged as far as the parents’ rights. This same theory should apply in this case. You may want a waiver for the parent to sign as well and check State and Local Laws. (DATIA Forum Member, “sanda”)
By Heather Cobun
Assistant Living & Arts Editor of SU The Crusader Online
A pilot program from the NCAA will anonymously test athletes for banned substances at a number of Division III schools, including Susquehanna.
Athletic Director Pam Samuelson said Susquehanna volunteered for the program, which will be the first institutional drug testing done at the Division III level.
Previously, Division III athletes were only tested at championships.
Samuelson said she discussed volunteering for the program with President L. Jay Lemons.
“We both thought it was a good idea,” she said.
Samuelson said the NCAA instituted the pilot program to see if there is a substance abuse problem at the Division III level.
Samples will not be labeled with students’ names, and results from participating schools will be tracked over a two-year period, she said.
Brenda Brewer, assistant athletic director and women’s lacrosse coach, said the anonymity of the testing “allays some fears” for the athletes.
After the two-year period is over, Samuelson said the NCAA may decide to begin testing regularly at the Division III level, as it does at Division I and II schools.
“I think it’s too bad if we find out that drug testing needs to be done at the Division III level,” Samuelson said.
The NCAA has a Student Advisory Council at each of its three levels, Samuelson said.
The Division III council suggested that drug testing be done at the Division III level.
“The reason the NCAA is doing the pilot program is because they’ve heard of a need to do it from student athletes,” she said.
Mike Keeney, head athletic trainer and site coordinator for the testing, said he understands why the NCAA is conducting the pilot program.
“It’s a good thing, definitely,” he said.
Samuelson said she has spoken to every athletic team on campus about the new program and has shown a video provided by the NCAA about the process of being tested and what is required of the athletes.
“We’ve had students tested at championships,” Samuelson said, adding that the process is not entirely unfamiliar.
Samuelson said the NCAA will send a team to Susquehanna to perform on-site testing at least once a year and possibly up to four times a year. She said the NCAA has the option of testing up to 20 athletes per visit, and those athletes can be from one team or a combination of teams.
Susquehanna will receive no more than 48 hours’ notice of when testing will occur, she said.
Keeney said he will receive a call from an NCAA representative, who will tell him which athletes the NCAA chose for testing.
Keeney will then inform those athletes that they were selected and will give them details of when and where to report.
He said he is not sure where on campus the testing will occur. “We’ll find out when they give me a call,” he said.
The program provides educational resources for participating schools, according to Samuelson.
Of the 100 schools that volunteered for the program, some were designated as education-only schools, while others, like Susquehanna, are education and testing schools.
Samuelson said the information provided by the program will be helpful to Susquehanna when planning its education efforts.
“How much education is needed for our students in terms of banned substances?” she asked.
The student athlete handbook contains a list of the substances banned by the NCAA, some of which are not illegal substances.
For instance, excess amounts of caffeine are not permitted.
Keeney said he frequently fields questions from student athletes related to legal supplements purchased at health stores.
“The problem with supplements is that they’re not FDA-approved,” he said.
Just because a supplement’s package does not list any NCAA banned substances does not mean it does not contain any, Keeney said.
Samuelson said if results show that athletes are continually testing positive for these legal, but banned substances, it could help Susquehanna supplement deficiencies in its education efforts.
“I think it’s great to have the data,” Samuelson said.
She said the purpose of drug testing is to protect the health and welfare of students and also to ensure competitive equity.
“We all want to play by the same rules,” Samuelson said.
Baldwin County schools have expanded their drug-testing program to include steroids, a move aimed at keeping muscle-building pills and injections away from local students.
A number of high-profile professional athletes, including new home run king Barry Bonds, have been linked to steroid use, and may have made performance-enhancing drugs more enticing, said county Athletic Director Chuck Anderson.
“Obviously, the use and prevalence of steroids has increased in the last 10 to 15 years,” said Anderson, who coordinates Baldwin junior high and high school sports. “The use of steroids in professional athletics has caused it to trickle down to high school athletics.”
He said, “Anybody with common sense knows that steroids should not be used, and they can be harmful, especially to young people. If steroid testing is a deterrent for even one kid, I can’t understand why anybody wouldn’t be in favor of it.”
The Baldwin school system launched its drug-testing program in spring 2006 at Gulf Shores High and Gulf Shores Middle schools. Students who participate in extracurricular activities — from the debate team to football — and those who drive to school must submit to random testing.
In January, Baldwin officials extended the testing to the other six high schools, and will add other middle schools in January 2008.
Last school year, only 26 of the 709 random tests — 3.7 percent — indicated the presence of drugs, according to school system figures. All of the positive tests reflected use of marijuana, and one of those also included amphetamines.
Some of those students were also tested for steroids, said Assistant Superintendent Terry Knight, but he added that he didn’t know how many. None tested positive for steroids.
Knight said that only a “random sampling of the already-random sample” will include steroid screening because of the high cost. A single steroid test costs $200, he said, while the test for drugs including marijuana, cocaine, painkillers and methamphetamines costs $47.
Knight declined to divulge how many steroid screenings will be performed because “we don’t want students to know that information.” Athletes won’t be singled out, he said.
It’s unclear how many other school systems in Alabama conduct random drug tests or steroid tests, because the state Department of Education does not track that data, said spokesman Michael Sibley. The Mobile County school system has no drug-testing program.
Anderson and Knight said there’s no evidence to suggest steroids have become popular among local teens, but they stressed that the Baldwin testing is designed to serve as a deterrent.
Anderson said steroids have entered the national conversation thanks to the spotlight on Bonds as he pursued and broke Hank Aaron’s career home run record. Anderson also referenced the steroid allegations swirling around the recent triple-murder/suicide involving professional wrestler Chris Benoit.
“People that are looking for something that might give them an edge may say, ‘Hey, this is something that helped them, maybe it might help me.’ That’s very dangerous,” Anderson said.
A total of 14 companies have submitted bids to run Texas’ new two-year, $6 million random steroids testing program for 700,000 public school athletes.
The most notable bidder among the three out-of-state companies was National Center for Drug Free Sport based in Kansas City, Mo. The company does drug testing for the NCAA and the only two states with mandatory random steroid testing for high school athletes, New Jersey and Florida.
The University Interscholastic League, Texas’ governing body of public high school sports, said there is no deadline to select a contractor.
