Diminishing Steroid Use in NCAA?

I was reading an article published in January of this year by the NCAA that was reporting a drop in banned substance abuse amongst college athletes. Apparently in 2009, 20,474 student-athletes were surveyed and less than 4 percent of respondents had used anabolic steroids which is a slight drop from the figures gathered in a 2005 survey. The big question is how honest were the participants.  I don’t believe the student-athletes would be particularly honest with a survey like this.  Even if it is anonymous, student-athletes should realize that if there are a high percentage of participants admitting to having used steroids then the NCAA will enforce more crack-downs to catch the athletes abusing substances.  Therefore this survey did nothing to convince me that student-athletes were using any less than in previous years.  I find this to be just another gimmick by the NCAA to make the public think that student-athletes continue to be positive role models. Now if all the athletes would have gone through testing, then I would agree with the NCAA’s findings.

In the same survey, student-athletes were questioned about narcotics, alcohol and social drug use.  However these results were not what the NCAA was hoping to see. The respondents reporting to have used marijuana in the past 12 months was 1.4% greater than in 2005 and alcohol consumption was 5.6% greater.  The good news was an overwhelming 96.7% majority of participants reported never using narcotics.  My suspicions of dishonesty were reinforced by the narcotic percentages because of the similar figures of narcotic and steroid use. The fact that the use of narcotics and steroid use are about the same low percentage makes me question the participant’s honesty.  In our culture steroids and hard drugs are looked down upon much more than alcohol and pot.  It is much more acceptable to admit to drinking alcohol and smoking pot than it is to railing coke.  That is why it is okay for respondents to report alcohol and pot abuse before ever admitting to hard substance use.

My final thoughts after reading the article were that student-athletes are more open about their alcohol and social drug consumption than about steroid or narcotic use.  Athletes understand that alcohol and marijuana are bad for you and can get you banned from a program, yet they par-take, athletes also know that narcotics and steroids are bad for you and will get you banned, what is stopping them from using those then? If a high percentage of athletes are willing to risk athletic probation with alcohol and pot, why wouldn’t they risk it with harder substances, the consequences are very similar and with steroids at least the risks would be increasing performance.

Bryce Van Boxtel Kin332i 03 TR 12:30-1:45