Steroids testing in high schools long overdue

Long Beach assemblyman has been pushing same doping bill for 18 years

Jim Baumbach

12:20 PM EDT, May 24, 2007

Eighteen years ago, in the year 1989, Jason Giambi was an 18-year-old high school senior, Barry Bonds was a talented major-leaguer but by no means considered a threat to Hank Aaron's home-run record and the company named BALCO was a decade from entering our vocabulary.

Steroids clearly weren't even a blip on our pro sports landscape.

But that same year an assemblyman from Long Beach identified steroids as a fledging problem in sports, especially on the high-school level. So long before the steroid scandal hit the major leagues, Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Beach) sponsored a bill in the New York State Assembly that called for drug testing for high school student-athletes.

Eighteen years later, the bill still hasn't passed.

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"We have evidence that it's widely used in scholastic age," Weisenberg said by phone this morning. "It's there. It's being used. It's a danger."

We know that now, especially in light of how deep the steroids problem appears to have been in baseball. That's why Major League Baseball and the Players Association finally gave in to testing in 2004 on an experimental basis, and then a full-time basis with penalties in 2005.

When Congress called a special hearing a year ago, a main topic that day was the example they were setting for impressionable high school students, the ones who would do whatever their heroes would do.

So, if steroid use among high school students is such a major concern, why isn't there a form of a testing system? It only makes perfect sense.

Last year New Jersey installed a statewide random testing program for teams in all sports that qualify for the championships. Texas and Florida also have begun the process of random steroid testing.

But Weisenberg's steroid-testing bill outdated those states by many, many years, yet it hasn't seen the light of day. It's been passed by the Senate numerous times and in January was passed on to the education committee, which is where it sits down. But there's still little hope.

Weisenberg said he's managed to get it passed through the education committee in the past, but it has never made it past the codes committee, which oversees all new laws with penalties.

But Weisenberg said the bill does not advocate seeking criminal offense for a failed steroid test. Instead, it seeks to use a failed test as a way to educate the athlete. "There are no consequences," he said. "The consequences are that you have to get psychological help. Families need to understand the consequences of being involved in steroids."

Here's the exact wording of the summary listed on the bill:

"Requires the education department to establish guidelines for drug testing of student athletes by public and non-public school authorities wishing to conduct such testing; specifies that student and parent or guardian must consent to testing; makes numerous related provisions; establishes the class C felony of criminal sale of an anabolic steroid to a minor or, being over 21 years of age, knowingly and unlawfully selling an anabolic steroid to a person who is under 21 years of age; establishes state grants to school districts for the cost of testing students for anabolic steroid use, and appropriates $5,000,000 therefor."

Right now, the specter of steroids remains an elephant of sorts in high schools on Long Island. Todd Heimer, executive director of Section VIII (Nassau County), and Ed Cinelli, executive director of Section XI (Suffolk County), both said it's largely up to each school to police its athletes. Neither has ever heard of a school dealing with a steroids case.

But of course it's naïve to think no high school athlete on Long Island is using steroids. Weisenberg knows the sports scene well. He was a state champion in the quarter mile and played basketball at Niagara on a scholarship. He used to coach varsity basketball at East Meadow, track and field at Long Beach and still certifies lifeguards in Long Beach, which he said has been his home for his entire life.

"Winning isn't everything," Weisenberg said. "We have that mentality in our society that you need to win at all costs. So what are the athletes doing? They're doing very dangerous things to try to be the best. They don't care about the consequences, as long as they win now."

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To view a copy of the proposed bill, go to http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi, click a check mark into all four boxes and type in bill No. A122.