Is Drug Testing Helping Those Who Need It?

When Lefty Driesell was the men’s basketball coach at the University of Maryland, he said that cocaine improves athletic performance. I am not sure that the message he sent was received the way he wanted or expected.

Len Bias, arguably one of the greatest college basketball players of all time, played under Driesell from 1983-86. Bias used cocaine to improve his athletic performance, and eventually died of an overdose.

Driesell knew about the drug use among his players; however, he was not trying to defend the use in his comments. He was stating the fact that, if used before practice or a game, stimulants give an athlete more strength, endurance, and stamina.

Driesell’s comments reverberated throughout all of college basketball and were indirectly responsible for the common employment of drug testing today. Drug testing is a way to ensure that the athletic contests are balanced and that no single athlete has an unfair advantage over any other.

Recently our school system, along with many other school systems in North Carolina, has implemented drug testing to make sure our playing fields are leveled. The students who are eligible to be tested are those who either participate in athletics, or who are involved in other extracurricular activities, such as student government, clubs, or other organizations within the school.

With this new system in effect, we must ask ourselves if this is the most effective way to prevent drug use. This system is exclusive to students who are involved in activities that leave them little time to experiment with drugs, unlike the students who are not involved in any of these time-consuming activities, who are not tested. What about these uninvolved students? What kind of message is sent to them through this new policy?

The message sent tells them that if they want to experiment with drugs, then they should not be involved in any extra-curricular activities. This is not the message that should be sent to students. Students should be encouraged to join these activities, thereby leaving them little free time to test out drugs. Idle hands are the devil’s playground.

The federal government says teen drug use has been reduced by 50% in the past fifteen years, so why have school systems waited until now to drug test? It seems that the crucial time for drug testing has passed and that testing is a little obsolete.

Until the school system has the prudence to know whom to test or when to test them, maybe they should not be doing any testing at all. Lefty Driesell and Len Bias did not have that prudence either; Bias died of an overdose and Driesell was fired soon after.

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