SOME QUESTION THE EFFECTIVENESS OF NEW JERSEY'S TESTING
MODE

This fall, New Jersey became the first state to launch a statewide
steroid-testing program for high school athletes.

The program calls for random testing of athletes who qualify for team
or individual state tournaments. Each test will cost $150 to $200;
the New Jersey high school association and the state each will give
$50,000 to cover the bill.

Those who test positive will be penalized with a one-year loss of eligibility.

Frank Uryasz, the president of the National Center for Drug Free
Sport, a Kansas City, Mo., company hired to administer New Jersey's
testing program, said it could become a model for other states.

"A number of states have told us that they're just waiting to see
what happens in New Jersey, so it wouldn't surprise me if in 2007 or
2008 we saw more testing conducted by state high school associations," he said.

Uryasz identified Florida and Illinois as leading candidates;
newspaper reports indicate that New York and Texas also are
considering the idea.

In Oregon, a nationally renowned steroids expert told the Statesman
Journal that New Jersey's program is severely flawed and "a
monumental waste of resources."

"That is the most ridiculous program on the planet," said Dr. Linn
Goldberg, a professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University.

Because New Jersey's policy limits testing to postseason tournaments,
athletes can easily evade detection by using steroids in planned
cycles before and after the playoffs, Goldberg said.

"How is that a deterrent?" he asked. "It isn't, not by any stretch of
the imagination. If drug testing is going to work, it's got to be
random, it's got to be unannounced, and it's got to be at any time."

Tom Welter, the executive director of the Oregon School Activities
Association, representing about 290 schools throughout the state, has
doubts about instituting a New Jersey-like program here.

"Not that random drug testing is necessarily bad, but it's terribly,
terribly expensive, and I question its long-term positive effects," he said.

"What's being accomplished if an athlete stays off chemical use
during the football season, then turns right around and goes on a
binge during the winter and spring because he's not playing anything?
Have we really taught that athlete anything?

Uryasz, whose firm also administers drug testing for the National
Collegiate Athletic Association, sees New Jersey's postseason testing
program as a good first step.

"I expect them to go with testing at the championships first and get
their feet wet," he said. "Then I think they'll expand testing to
year-round. This is what the NCAA did. They started testing at
championships in 1986 and then went to a year-round program starting in 1990."

For years, however, the NCAA did not test athletes during the summer,
leaving a big loophole in its so-called year-round testing program.
Random testing of college athletes was extended into the summer
months for the first time this year.

"That was important," Uryasz said. "When you're talking about
year-round deterrence, you have to test year-round."

New Jersey's acting governor, Richard Codey, also formerly a youth
basketball coach, ordered that state's high school testing program
last December, citing the need to clamp down on illegal
performance-enhancing drugs.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
about 5 percent of U.S. high school students took steroids in 2005
without a doctor's prescription.

The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association projects
that about 500 athletes -- about 5 percent of the 10,000 athletes who
participate in tournaments each year -- will be tested this school year.

Sixty percent of the tests will occur in sports that the association
deems most susceptible to steroid use, such as football, track and
field, wrestling, baseball, lacrosse and swimming.

Urine samples will be analyzed by the UCLA Olympic Analytical
Laboratory in Los Angeles, the only lab in the nation accredited by
the World Anti-Doping Agency to perform steroid testing.

New Jersey's testing program is far less rigorous than the NCAA's
year-round random drug-testing program, also administered by the
Center for Drug Free Sport.

Uryasz set up the NCAA testing program in 1986 after UCLA researchers
found a way to detect steroids, and he guided the program for 13
years. In 1999, he established Drug Free Sport as the nation's first
privately owned sports drug-testing company.

Currently, about 12,000 NCAA athletes are tested each year. The NCAA
tests for steroids, stimulants and masking agents as part of its
regular program, adding illegal drugs such as cocaine and marijuana
in championship play.

Uryasz and his staff oversee a network of field crews who collect
urine samples from college athletes across the country. The samples
are tested at two labs -- the UCLA lab for steroids, a Kansas lab for
illegal street drugs.

The NCAA spends about $4 million per year on its testing program,
plus $500,000 a year for athlete education.

Uryasz thinks that testing is a strong deterrent, and he points to
the NCAA testing program as proof.

Prior to year-round testing, a 1989 survey of college football
players found that about 10 percent -- 1 in 10 -- admitted to using
steroids, Uryasz said.

"Now that number is about 1 percent, about one of every 100," he
said. "So they've made considerable progress in deterring the use of
steroids, and I think it's because of the year-round testing program."