The Problem: High school athletes are becoming

addicted to prescription drugs. Athletes injuries are very

common. I know this first hand being in the world of sports. I
have had many injuries, one needing knee surgery. They gave
me very strong medicine for the pain. These pills are strong, and
if they fall into the wrong athletes hand, they can become
addicted to these for all the wrong reasons. These pills can take
over an athletes life. According to MMWR weekly High school
athletes account for an estimated 2 million injuries, 500,000
doctor visits, and 30,000 hospitalizations annually. These
athletes are not getting their supplies of prescription pills from
their parents, but they are getting them first hand from their
doctors. Survey responses provided in 2009 by around 2,300
high school seniors. According to the survey, 12% of the boys

and 8% of the girls admitted to abusing painkillers including

codeine and morphine, figures which represent an increase over
previous years. Unlike many other drugs, the students who are
using painkillers are not typically getting their pills from a drug
dealer. Instead many of them are getting the drugs after being
prescribed by a doctor. Also as you see in the graph below, high
school ages are at the most risk to began to start using drugs. If
we can take out these athletes, we can lower the percent of teens
using drugs.

The Solution: I propose that we began to start testing

APS high school athletes. On APS code of conduct for athletes
they are required a psychical in order to participate in the sport. I
say during that psychical we include a drug test. However, these
athletes are smart, and can stay clean until the start of the
season. So what about during the season? Well right before
district play, which is towards the end of the season, coaches
will choose a random practice to drug test the athletes. So they
are unexpected, and athletes will not see it coming. They will be
drug tested twice, before the season begins, and towards the end
before district play at the coachs discretion.
What About the Students Who Have a
Positive Drug Test? Students who do have a dirty or
positive drug test will no longer be able to participate in sports.
Hopefully this alone will make athletes realize their love of the
game is stronger than any drug or pill they come across.
According to APS code of conduct A. Prohibited Conduct
1. A student shall be removed or suspended from any
sport or activity for conduct deemed inappropriate and
may be removed or suspended for violations of
team/group, school or school district rules as specified in
the APS Student Behavior Handbook, regardless of whether
such conduct takes place on or off campus, and regardless
of whether such conduct takes place during school hours or
at any other time. This conduct may include, but is not
limited to:
1. The use or possession of alcoholic beverages, illegal
drugs, or tobacco in any form, or attendance at a party

or other gathering at which any of the foregoing

substances are present and/or being used as referenced
in the APS Student Behavior Handbook.
2. The use or possession of illegal supplements and/or
performance enhancing drugs such as steroids.
Students charged with or suspected of any of the above conduct
may be suspended from their sport or activity pending an
investigation.
Drug testing these athletes will show there are heavy
consequences to breaking this conduct.

What Happens If There is No Drug

Testing: Well, as we know APS, had a recent heroine
outbreak at one of their high schools. Now what does heroine
have to do with athletes becoming addicted to painkillers? Well
these students addicted to one of the worse drugs, were
interviewed. They were asked, what fired the fuel to even think
about doing a drug like heroine? Their answer was simple. Their
addiction started because they needed something stronger to
feed their addiction of prescription drugs. So if these athletes are
not drug tested this can cause them to abuse the pills more, and
just like most heroine addicts, began wanting something
stronger, and stronger till finally they began to experiment. In

even worse cases, by not drug testing these athletes, catching

their addiction sooner can lead to the cause of overdose and
even worse. Having an early funeral for these young athletes
who have not yet even started or experienced their life. Below is
a chart to show the increase in death of heroine use. As you can
see the number of deaths increased tremendously, from 20102013. Which was three years ago. As you can imagine the
number has probably gone up. Now imagine if we dont start
drug testing these athletes, they will feed into these number of
heroine addicts, and worse become another number on this death
chart.

The Funding: The first drug test will be covered by

medical insurance, when asked to be included in the psychical.
Psychical are required by athletic trainers before even tryouts
began. However, for the second one, it will be included in the
package that the majority of APS sports team, tell parents at the

beginning of the season. This package includes shoes, bags, and

even warm up suites. Now this package will include every
athletes drug test. So the price will increase from an average of
more then 180. Since drug test average from about sixteen
dollars to sixty dollars. Now most athletes never pay out of
pocket for this package. Why? Well because of fundraising. You
see most APS teams, fundraise through out the year to raise
money to pay for their packages. So by the time seasons comes,
teams have enough money to decrease the price of the package.
Depending on how much they have raised during off season and
through out their actual season. Each team during their home
games have snack bars, that all profits go to them. So the second
drug test, will be covered by the amount of money done by
fundraising. So in conclusion the cost will be little to none out of
pocket to pay for the second drug test. There is also a website
called http://www.drugfreesport.com/services/sport-drugtesting.asp that can help your sports organization drug test your
athletes.

The Outcome of Other High Schools Who

Do Drug Test: APS will not be the first to start drug
testing their athletes. Many high schools from all over the
country have been doing this such as The New Jersey State
Interscholastic Athletic Association, which is the first high
school in the country to start drug testing athletes. Since starting
this process they drug test about five hundred athletes during
championship play. The rate of positive test has never exceeded
1 percent. Also the Illinois High School Association began its
program in the 2008-2009 year. They test about 650 students,
and so far they have had no positive test. Each of these schools

director had something to say about how they feel about testing
these athletes. I think the process works, said Steven Timko,
the executive director of the association. Were proud of the
fact were doing this. We are trying to look out for the health
and safety of our student-athletes. I think were trying to send
the right message. Also We continue to view that our program
is accomplishing what it set out to do, Gibson said. Its
another tool in the students toolbox to say no to these
substances. Our program serves more as a deterrent rather than
being designed to punish students. These programs continue to
have positive outcomes towards these programs.

Conclusion: In APS we see a wide variety of different

students wasting their life away on hardcore drugs. We see high
schools such as La Cueva making news because of the outbreak
of heroine and abusing of prescription pills. If we can show that
we care about these students future, by drug testing we can
shape them for a better future. APS will show that their code of
conduct is not to be messed with. That these rules will be put
into place by allowing students to be drug tested. By drug testing
them twice, will make sure there is no way of drug use through
out the season. I am hoping that drug test will put fear into
students, so they never are tempted to touch a drug such as
heroine or cocaine. Who knows if APS sees the decrease in drug
use in schools, they maybe able to pursue this further, and began
random drug testing students in school.

Resources Used
http://www.drugfreesport.com/services/sport-drugtesting.asp
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugsbrains-behavior-science-addiction/preventing-drugabuse-best-strategy
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/sports/drugtests-for-high-school-athletes-fuel-debate.html

http://www.aps.edu/athletics/documents/Athletic
%20-%20Activity%20Code%20of%20Conduct
%2011-12.pdf
http://www.koat.com/news/newmexico/albuquerque/cartels-market-heroin-toalbuquerque-teens/20219418
http://www.narconon.org/blog/narconon/surveysays-high-school-athletes-risk-prescription-abuseproblems/