Steroid Testing = Waste of Money

Steroid sure is a problem in Sports, but when it cost Texas more than a million dollars and only two high school athlete got caught last spring, Wow, what a HUGE waste of taxpayer money! As the brother of a high school athlete, I certainly do not want kids taking steroids but it seems like statistically we don’t have a problem. Why not have a “turn in” program where teachers, parents or concerned persons could request a particular athlete be tested if there was a particular concern instead of wasting more millions on testing innocent kids? I’ve read the UIL rules on testing and about the appeals process and kids would be scared to take Flintstones vitamins! If the manufacturer doesn’t clean his equipment before making them, some “banned substance” could be in them that could cause a kid to test positive. They then would have a mandatory 30 day suspension. This suspension DOES NOT start immediately after the positive test but the day that their sport begins! So if a student has a false positive test, he’s basically out for the season! Career hopes and dreams and scholarship chances could be ruined, through no fault of the kid, the parents or the school! Perhaps Dewhurst should create a scholarship fund using his own money for the athletes who may be caught in this trap… Spend taxpayer money elsewhere!!!
This program simply isn’t worth the money. The return on the investment, at least after the first round of tests, doesn’t justify continuing to test for steroids on such a massive level. Texas has more than 750,000 high school students playing sports, and random testing of just 10 percent of them would cost millions of dollars. Surely the state can find better uses for that money. Steroids stay in the system long enough that students couldn’t just refrain from taking them a day or two and it not show up in the test. This was a ridiculous waste of time, effort and money. Dewhurst didn’t care about the school kids — he merely wanted to look “tough” for some future run for office. If he wants to impress, he should direct this $3 million to classrooms.