STUDY SHOWS TESTING MAY CUT DRUG USE

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Student-athletes subject to random drug testing at an
Oregon high school were almost four times less likely to use drugs than
their counterparts at a similar school who were not tested, a new study
shows.

The one-year pilot study by researchers at Oregon Health & Science
University compared Wahtonka High School in The Dalles, where all
student-athletes were subject to random testing, and Warrenton High School,
a demographically similar school near Astoria, where they were not.

Of the 135 athletes subject to the random testing at Wahtonka, only 5.3
percent said they were using illicit drugs by the end of the school year,
versus 19.4 percent of the 141 athletes at Warrenton. The students'
responses were confidential.

The study, done during the 1999-2000 school year, was funded by the National
Institute on Drug Abuse, an arm of the National Institutes of Health.