After Texas spent $10 million on steroid testing since 2007, the tests yielded remarkably low results—and scores don’t match up with word from the grapevine. According to the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, in 2013, one in five teens claim to know at least one friend using steroids.
Don Hooton is president of the Taylor Hooton Foundation, a non profit designed to educate parents and students about the dangers of performance enhancing drugs. Hooton argues that the tests can’t evade high schoolers, as students not only know about the test prior to its arrival on campus, but are not monitored when providing urine samples due to privacy laws.
The Texas Sunset Advisory Commission advised Texas lawmakers to pull the plug on the steroid program, stating in their commission report that the current testing program is ineffective against scaring off high schoolers from taking drugs. If Texas pulls its funding, it leaves Illinois and New Jersey as the only states hosting programs designed for statewide high school steroid testing.
This story was prepared with assistance by Sarah Alerasoul.
