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The Juice
At all levels of play, athletes seek an advantage. In high school, many athletes find this advantage by turning to anabolic steroids, or over-the-counter muscle building supplements such as creatine and androstenedione. It’s a fact. More high school athletes are using steroids today than ever before.
While illegal, steroids have grown to be accepted as parts of professional sports, solely because of overuse. People are not as appalled when they hear that a player is on “the juice,” and with younger generations looking up to those athletes for guidance, often find themselves thinking that this behavior is acceptable. The difference is, while the Olympic committee, most high-level sports teams and the National Collegiate Athletic Association have cracked down on steroid use, nothing is being done in high schools. They can’t be caught. Some of this may be a result of the cost of the testing. Many high schools drug test for other types of narcotics – marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamines – a test that runs around $22.00 per person. To test for drugs that actually can affect an athletes performance however, costs around an additional fifty dollars; a price most schools cannot afford.
According to a survey by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, steroid use among high school students more than doubled between 1991 and 2003. More than 6% of 15,000 students surveyed admitted trying steroid pills or injections. At the same time, less than 4% of the nation's high schools were testing for steroids, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations' survey of athletic directors. This
is just for steroids however. It does not take creatine or “andro” into account; the most popular body enhancing drugs in high schools.
Getting high schoolers to stop taking body-enhancing drugs is a difficult task. Many coaches give speeches and advice about not drinking alcohol, or smoking, but many forget to include steroids in the same category. While some schools with the money can require steroid testing, many do not have that luxury. I think that one of the major steps to stopping this problem begins right at home. Parents and authority figures need to teach kids at an early age about the hazards of body-enhancers. Kids need to learn about steroids, and how they can affect the body. Kids need to hear about the people whose lives steroids have affected. Kids need to be taught about the side effects of steroids; high blood pressure, depression, heart disease, nausea, paranoia, baldness, sleep problems, acne, strokes, blood clots, hallucinations, and many more. Kids need know. Just as many kids are taught not to smoke or take candy from strangers, they must learn that steroids are just one of those “bad things” that they should avoid.
