The NCAA News - News & Features

Positive drug tests increase slightly

But those ruled ineligible equals only 1 percent

About one percent of the student-athletes who were tested for drugs by the NCAA between August and December 1995 were ruled ineligible as the result of a positive test -- an increase of .2 percent over the previous year.

Out of the 4,908 student-athletes who were examined during the August-December 1995 period, 47 were ruled ineligible as the result of a positive test. During the same period in 1994, 39 of 4,784 student-athletes were ruled ineligible for a positive test.

This time, the failure rate was almost four times higher for student-athletes who took part in the NCAA postseason testing program than for those who were tested in the Association's year-round program. Of those tested in the postseason (selected NCAA championships and bowl games), 2.6 percent were ruled ineligible as the result of a positive test. The failure rate for the year-round program was .7 percent.

Of the 47 positive-ineligibles, all were for anabolic steroids or urine manipulators (20), marijuana (13), or failure to show or refusal to provide a specimen (14).

The positive-ineligible rate in the Division I year-round football program was low -- .4 percent -- but positive tests for marijuana were relatively frequent at the Division I-AA Football Championship (five of 120 tested, 4.1 percent) and during the time in advance of the Division I-A bowl games (five of 147, 3.4 percent).

In addition, another 32 student-athletes tested positive for drug use but retained their eligibility as a result of medical documentation, when an appeal was granted or pending the outcome of follow-up testing.

The Association does not attempt to interpret the results of the tests, and Frank D. Uryasz, NCAA director of sports sciences, said the results of the tests do not necessarily mean that only one percent of NCAA student-athletes use drugs.

Any student-athlete failing the test is ineligible for at least one year after testing positive.