Should high school athletes be tested?

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I suspect there are some Southland prep athletes who take performance-enhancing drugs, but we don’t know for sure because there isn’t any statewide testing. The ever-tightening belt on school district budgets has prevented the state and the CIF from administering drug screenings similar to the programs used in Texas, Florida and New Jersey.

Of course, in today’s tumultuous economy, even these states, which all have smaller athlete pools than California, are rethinking their pricey testing programs now that the results are in.

According to USA Today, only four of 11,217 prep athletes tested in Texas last year had positive results and only two of 10,117 athletes in Florida came up dirty. As a result, coaches, school officials and politicians are questioning whether the costly tests should continue just to weed out a handful of cheaters.

There are plenty of folks on both sides of the fence over this issue, but what do you think?

-- Austin Knoblauch