Since its inception in 1984, the NCAA Education/Testing Survey has provided program and policy data used by member institutions across the country. The current survey, mailed in October 2001 to athletics directors at all 978 active member institutions has now been tabulated and analyzed. With 505 institutions responding, results are based on an overall 52 percent response rate.

Programs vary considerably across divisions. Therefore, the breakdown of results by division should be of considerable value to institutions want-ing to compare their programs, make changes or implement new ones. Some of the survey's most important highlights are presented below.

Major findings

* Sixty-six percent have drug/alcohol education programs for student-athletes, and 26 percent have programs for coaches and other staff.

Sixty-seven percent do not permit alcohol use during recruiting visits.

Forty-eight percent currently operate a drug-testing program for student-athletes.

Ninety-four percent of the drug-testing programs are mandatory.

Ninety percent of drug-testing programs use random testing.

Ninety percent of programs test for cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines, 50 percent test for anabolic agents and 45 percent test for ephedrine and ecstasy.

Ninety-nine percent use urine samples and 1 percent use hair or saliva samples.

Thirty-nine percent suspend a student-athlete after the first positive test, 72 percent suspend a student-athlete after the second positive test, and 31 percent suspend a student-athlete after the third positive test.

Twenty-eight percent remove a student-athlete from the team after the second positive test, while 70 percent remove a student-athlete from the team after the third positive test.

Eighty-eight percent of institutions do not allow alcohol sales at athletics events, 82 percent do not allow alcohol ads in signage and 77 percent do not allow alcohol ads in game programs.

While the 2001 NCAA Drug Education/
Testing Survey results can be helpful in institutional programming, they should be used together with results from the 2001 NCAA Study of Substance Use Habits of College Student-Athletes. Together, those two studies present a comprehensive picture of the drug-use attitudes and habits of student-athletes across sports and divisions, as well as institutional programs and policies that are in place to deal with these issues and problems.

For more details on the 2001 NCAA Drug Education/Testing Survey and the 2001 NCAA Study of Substance Use Habits of College Student-Athletes, contact Mary Wilfert (mwilfert@ncaa.org) at the NCAA. Results also can be found at NCAA Online at www.ncaa.org/sports_sciences/education (the survey report is located under "Drug-Education/Testing Surveys" in the middle of that page).

Arnold F. Mazur is the staff physician at Boston College Health Services and a member of the drug-education and drug-testing subcommittee of the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports.