A Properly Harsh Attack on Drugs

The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s decision to mandate year-round random drug testing for steroids puts athletes on notice. Drug use is not permissible in athletic competition. The warning and the stiff penalties may save some futures.

The new policy, approved earlier this week at the NCAA convention in Dallas, applies for the first two years to football players at major colleges. That’s the place to start. Football players are tempted to use anabolic steroids to build muscles. As many as 30% of the players on one team used steroids, according to a test performed by the NCAA at colleges during the off-season in 1988.

Under the new drug-testing policy, a player caught using steroids, or substances that mask the performance-enhancing drugs, will lose eligibility for one year. A second positive test will result in permanent ineligibility for NCAA competition.

The penalty is harsh, but so are the consequences of long-term use of anabolic steroids. The damage, according to medical literature, can include cardiovascular disease, liver problems and possibly premature death.

The stiffer penalties also apply to street drugs like marijuana and cocaine. If the memory of University of Maryland basketball player Len Bias, who died after celebrating with cocaine when the Boston Celtics drafted him in 1986, won’t stop young athletes from experimenting with drugs, perhaps the harsher penalties will.

The NCAA is sure to face legal challenges before the new policy takes effect Aug. 1. Several state courts have ruled against drug testing imposed by colleges; testing programs at five Pacific 10 colleges--Washington, Washington State, Oregon, Oregon State, and Stanford--are already limited by legal constraints. But when challenged previously on drug-testing, the NCAA has prevailed in federal court.

Drugs--whether steroids or the street variety--pose a major problem in the sporting world. The NCAA’s strict new policy recognizes the temptations--and the dangers. The stiff penalties send the right message to talented young men and women who sometimes are only too willing to do anything to win.