JUST PREPS: A page dedicated to high school athletes, their families and coaches--and to those who follow high school sports. : War on Drugs Only a Skirmish : Mere 1% of Schools Take Advantage of Supreme Court Ruling On Random Testing

It was billed as a major victory in the fight against illegal drug use, but now it seems merely one step on a long road.

On June 26, the Supreme Court ruled that a high school in the logging town of Vernonia, Ore., could randomly and routinely test its athletes for use of illegal drugs.

The ruling was hailed by many, including former White House drug policy director Lee Brown, because it seemed to clear the way for widespread testing.

It hasn’t. According to the National Federation of State High School Athletic Assns., fewer than 1% of the nation’s nearly 16,000 public high schools take advantage of the court’s ruling.

No Los Angeles City Section school tests athletes or other students for drugs. Only a handful of Southland schools--primarily in Orange County--have programs, all voluntary and all but one in place before the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“I think there was a lot of commotion when the ruling first came out, but no one is eager to do it,” said Loyola Athletic Director Nick Wooler. “I think after schools looked into it, they realized it wasn’t as easy as just wanting to start a program.”

Schools that looked into testing have found a major problem: It’s expensive. The national federation estimates it costs $20-$30 per standard drug screen, with the cost rising to more than $100 for a steroid test.

“We looked into it,” Carson Athletic Director Saul Pacheco said. “But it was sort of left up to us to raise the money, and our athletic budgets are cut enough already. It’s just cost prohibitive right now.”

Few schools can afford to completely subsidize drug programs, so the few that have them have looked to local hospitals, businesses and individuals for help.

Murrieta Valley High’s voluntary testing program was implemented in September and has quickly become a model. Schools from as far away as North Carolina have inquired about the program.

After conducting a survey of 100 male athletes, administrators realized a need for testing. It began with students involved in extracurricular activities, but soon expanded school-wide.

The first, and perhaps most effective move by the school, was to hand the task of implementing a testing program over to the Substance Abuse Council, a nonprofit drug education and testing service unaffiliated with any school.

“That was vital because it let the students know that this would be completely random, that the school was not going to target any particular person,” said Pam Barret, director of Opt To Be Free, the program put on by the council.

Barret and her team sent booklets to parents that gave the guidelines of the program, emphasizing the school’s limited role.

Although samples would be collected on campus from among those students who had volunteered to be in the program, the five students tested each week would be identified only by number. The school, which had no access to the numbers, could not know who was being tested or even what students volunteered for the program.

Also, only the parents and students were informed of a positive test, assuring students that the school could not penalize them.

The Substance Abuse Council, operating with a discount from a local laboratory that cut the cost to $14 per screening, then eliminated the school from the equation entirely by soliciting enough funds from local businesses and individuals to cover the cost of the program. Students who have volunteered are also entered in a raffle each week and can win movie passes and gift certificates donated by local merchants.

But Murrieta is the exception.

“From what I understand, people want to stay away from the issue entirely,” said Margaret Davis, assistant commissioner of the CIF.

Schools have learned that a voluntary program is essentially the only viable route, because implementing a mandatory program could decrease student participation in athletics and possibly lead to protests and lawsuits.

“I imagine [testing] will become more prevalent as a reaction rather than a pro-action,” said Barbara Fiege, City Section commissioner. “It would come as a result of something, like a high-profile athlete being proven to have used drugs.”

Nationwide, few schools have adopted testing programs for athletes, and for many the motivation is primarily reactionary.

Dayton (Ky.) High, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, began random testing after 12 football players were suspended for allegedly using LSD. Mid-Prairie High in Wellman, Iowa, began discussing testing after 24 football players were suspended for alcohol- and drug-related violations.

“Along with the cost is the litigation issue,” said John Heeney, a spokesman for the national high school federation. “The Supreme Court’s case is still being challenged, and just because the court says testing is legal does not mean people are comfortable with it.”

The testing debate has also prompted some to question why many schools haven’t taken even the first step: better educating athletes and coaches on drug use.

Elgie Bellizio, athletic commissioner of the Monterey Bay League and the Mission Trails League near Salinas, has spoken at drug education and awareness conferences in 44 states. He recently conducted a seminar near San Francisco that was attended by 26 high school coaches. They were asked the same question he has asked nearly every coach he has come across during his nearly 30 years as a drug educator.

How many of you think some of your athletes are doing drugs?

After a great pause, one coach slowly raised his hand.

Then he reads them the statistics: 5% of high school athletes use steroids, 90% of high school students attend parties at which alcohol is available, 5% have tried marijuana or cocaine.

“No one ever asks them that question,” said Bellizio, who began working with kids in 1967 at the Haight-Ashbury free clinic in San Francisco. “And they don’t want to know the answer because no one has educated them as to the solution.”

Bellizio points to the state conference of the Athletic Administrators Assn. in Palm Springs on April 18-21 as an example of the problem. Only one session during the 3 1/2-day conference deals with drug prevention.

Roland Talton, the demand reduction coordinator for the Los Angeles division of the Drug Enforcement Agency, offers free one- and three-day seminars for coaches on drug awareness. Yet he has not been asked to conduct a seminar in four years, and, he says, other educational programs also go unused.

“I think a lot of people want to put their head in the sand and think their athletes are not doing anything,” Talton said. “If they want to test, that is fine, but before they test they need to have a strong educational program. And it seems few schools are interested in that right now.”

Even the testing programs in place and those schools that have pondered the idea seem to be eliminating steroids as a targeted drug in part because of cost--a mistake, according to those who have studied its use by high school athletes.

“I don’t think people know of all the derivatives of the steroids used by athletes today, and the kids have not been educated to the consequences,” said Justin Cunningham, a director for the San Diego County Office of Health and Education and author of the county’s curriculum on steroids.

“I don’t know of any schools that test [for steroids] because people seem to believe it is no longer a big problem, which the numbers show to be absolutely false.”

Even with the Supreme Court decision, there are still many more questions than answers.

On Dec. 16, Brown, the former White House drug czar, spoke at a conference of the nation’s athletic directors in San Diego. He praised drug testing but, as John Heeney of the national federation saw it: “He never gave any solutions to the problems that come up with starting a testing program.”