The NCAA has reasons not to test student-athletes for street drugs -- especially marijuana.

But the Association has conducted such testing since the program began, and appears likely to continue doing so for some time to come.

The NCAA's testing program was modeled after Olympic drug testing, but differs significantly in one respect -- the International Olympic Committee does not impose sanctions on athletes for marijuana use. In contrast, the NCAA penalizes a positive test for marijuana as severely as it penalizes steroid use, with loss of a year of competition after a first offense.

A 1985 Convention proposal to create an NCAA testing program was withdrawn before voting, partly because delegates objected that the program focused only on performance-enhancing substances and did little to discourage use of street drugs. A year later, the membership overwhelmingly approved a program including such testing.

"When this came about in the late 1980s, marijuana was being used and cocaine obviously was a big problem," said Gary Green, a longtime member of the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports. "People in the NCAA didn't want to appear to believe that street drugs are OK but performance-enhancing drugs aren't."

That philosophy remains in place today.

"The majority of the membership wants us to test for marijuana, and the majority wants the penalty to be the same as for other drugs," said Mary Wilfert, NCAA program coordinator in health and safety.

"The NCAA doesn't want to feel it's condoning drug use," Green said. "In the mind of the public, and in the mind of some student-athletes, by not having a penalty or testing for it, you're sort of condoning it."

But there always has been at least some discomfort about testing for substances that do not enhance athletics performance. Green said the competitive-safeguards committee regularly discusses the appropriateness of NCAA testing for marijuana.

"There's a big debate about whether marijuana should be on the (banned-drugs) list," he said. "It's definitely not a performance enhancer.

"You could make the argument that things like methamphetamines or cocaine, to some extent, should be tested, because they are stimulants and they may increase performance. But the data's very clear, and there have been studies indicating that there's no performance benefit to marijuana; in fact, it's a performance detriment."

The competitive-safeguards committee met in June with Thomas Murray, director of The Hastings Center, a research institute in Garrison, New York, specializing in medical and biotechnical ethics.

Murray, a supporter of drug testing to ensure fair competition in athletics and a longtime adviser to the United States Olympic Committee, and more recently the World Anti-Doping Agency, opposes testing for substances that have no performance-enhancing qualities.

"The fact that we are testing athletes to ensure they are not cheating does not open the door to testing for other purposes," Murray said. He believes singling out student-athletes for marijuana testing is no more appropriate than testing "the campus choir or debate team" -- even though athletes typically are far more accustomed to testing than nonathlete classmates, because of their longtime exposure to NCAA and institutional athletics department testing.

Murray, noting that protection of student-athlete welfare often is cited as justification for testing, asks why there is no testing to protect nonathletes from the same dangers. He suggests that the NCAA tests athletes for substances other than performance enhancers "because athletes let them do it," and that institutions test "because athletes are high-profile."

That's not to say that Murray doesn't understand the dangers of street drugs.

"Street drugs, as well as performance-enhancing drugs, are things I think we're better off without," he said. And he acknowledges anecdotal claims that athletes may use certain street drugs -- such as cocaine, which acts as a stimulant -- for performance enhancement. The use of those substances should be evaluated "by sport, case by case," and testing may be appropriate, he said.

But testing for non-performance enhancers creates confusion: "It confuses the athlete and it confuses the public" by drawing attention away from the legitimate purposes of preserving fair competition and the integrity of a sport, Murray said.

Still, support for such testing remains strong in the NCAA. The number of institutions that test athletes on campuses continues to increase, and most schools that conduct testing (including nearly all Division I-A institutions) focus on marijuana, cocaine and amphetamines.

And the student-athlete drug-use statistics that generated membership support for marijuana testing in the mid-1980s have not improved much over the years -- NCAA surveys consistently show that 25 percent or more of the student-athletes responding to the survey admit they have used the substance.

Even if athletes only are experimenting, rather than using marijuana frequently, that usage potentially creates problems for student-athletes and the schools they represent.

"One of the reasons we get so many marijuana positives is because, of all the drugs student-athletes take, No. 1, it's a fairly common one, and No. 2, it has the longest half-life," Green said. "If someone is going to the NCAA championship, and they've smoked within a month, it may still show up."

But concern about the appropriateness of NCAA testing for marijuana persists, and the competitive-safeguards committee frequently grapples with balancing membership concerns against justifiable goals.

"We've looked into maybe having a different penalty structure for marijuana," Green said, noting one possible approach. "But believe me, after talking about graded penalties and early reinstatement for a few years, it's a lot more complicated -- you start looking at percentages of seasons and, what if somebody tests positive in the spring and their season is in the fall."

Murray believes it will be difficult to achieve a workable compromise, whether through reduced penalties or other means.

"We live in the real world," he said. "It rarely helps to take an absolutist position, and compromises sometimes are the way to go." But none of the compromises potentially available to NCAA drug-testing administrators address the core question of whether testing for marijuana is appropriate in athletics.

Educational efforts probably will be more productive in the long run that testing, he suggests.

And he thinks the long-standing support within the NCAA for marijuana testing may erode if institutional CEOs who deal with campus-wide concerns -- rather than coaches and administrators who deal only with athletics department concerns -- take control of testing decisions.

Murray suggests it is difficult for CEOs to justify treating one segment of the student body -- athletes -- differently from other students on campus.

Green believes the debate will continue.

"It's important to continue reviewing that issue, and to decide whether there should be lesser penalties, or early reinstatement, or even to not test for it," he said.

-- Jack L. Copeland