The latest results for NCAA drug testing in 2002-03 have been reviewed and approved for publication by the NCAA Executive Committee.

The 2002-03 data contain the final results from the pilot drug-testing program in Division II baseball. Two athletes of 127 tested in fall of 2002 tested positive for banned steroids. Both were pitchers. One athlete failed to show for the test. The pilot program also operated in spring 2002, during which 148 baseball athletes were tested and one tested positive.

After review of the Division II baseball data, the NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports elected to recommend expansion of year-round testing in all Division II sports rather than just in baseball.

The NCAA's year-round drug testing program was expanded in August 2002 to include the banned stimulant ephedrine. In the testing period, 4,713 Division I football student-athletes, 2,248 Division I men and women track and field student-athletes and 2,144 Division II football student-athletes were tested for anabolic steroids, manipulators (including diuretics) and ephedrine. There were only two positives for ephedrine -- both coming from Division I football.

The NCAA also tested for the full range of banned stimulants at its championships and certified postseason football bowl games. The 2002-03 data showed six positives for amphetamines.

Amphetamine positives are caused primarily from the use of prescription medications for the treatment of attention-deficit disorders. The NCAA allows for the limited use of some banned substances through its medical-exceptions procedure. Student-athletes should work with their schools' sports-medicine staff to comply with the NCAA medical-exceptions process if they are prescribed a banned medication.

The 2002-03 data also show, as have previous years' data, that there are primarily five anabolic steroids that appear in NCAA positive cases. They are nandrolone, boldenone, testosterone [via the testosterone/epitestosterone (T:E) ratio], methandienone and stanozolol.

The following chart illustrates the comparison between the number of positives for those steroids in year-round Division I and II football testing in 2002-03 and the number of positives from three years ago:

According to Frank Uryasz, president of The Center for Drug Free Sport, which administers the NCAA drug-testing program, the increase in positives is due almost entirely to the increased number of positives for testosterone and stanozolol.

"The dearth of published data from other sports' drug-testing programs makes it difficult to know whether other programs are seeing the same increase," Uryasz said. "Much has been written about the increasing rate of positive cases for nandrolone in other sports' drug-testing programs. Athletes who test positive for nandrolone metabolites claim their positive tests are the result of the OTC supplement norandrostenedione rather than from the use of nandrolone by injection."

Uryasz said both metabolize into two compounds that are called "metabolites of nandrolone." Nandrolone cases for the NCAA hit a peak in 2000-01. The number of nandrolone positives in NCAA year-round testing in football in 2002-03 was at a five-year low, as illustrated by the following chart:

Since the inception of the NCAA drug-testing programs, the NCAA has released annually aggregate results from the Association's programs. The data provide the NCAA and its member institutions with useful information for drug-education and drug-testing initiatives. However, the data should not be used to draw conclusions about the extent of drug use in any one sport or division. Instead, the NCAA's national drug-use survey may be used for these purposes.

The Division I Championships/Competition Cabinet recently approved the expansion of NCAA year-round testing to all Division I sports. If approved by the Division I Management Council, the program will go into effect in August 2004. Additional information on the NCAA's drug-testing programs can be found at www.ncaa.org/health-safety.