New Jersey High Schools To Test For Steroids, Soft Drinks

Yesterday, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association announced that they would be testing playoff teams for drugs starting next school year.

The state will be testing any team that qualifies for the tournaments or championships sponsored by the NJSIAA, but they’ll only be testing a random sample of 500 students. About 100 drugs will be tested for, including such athlete drug test stalwarts as steroids, diuretics and cocaine. And the banned substance list (.pdf) also contains a bunch of energy drink/pill ingredients as ephedrine and bitter orange.

And, well, there’s also the most popular drug in the world:

(a) Stimulants

amiphenazole
amphetamine
bemigride
benzphetamine
bromantan
caffine [sic] (guarana)
chlorphentermine
cocaine

Yes, that’s caffeine! (Uh, we think.) Fear not, soda junkies… well, you’re probably not qualifying for any state playoffs anyway, but even if you are, New Jersey’s test will only show up as positive if the concentration in urine exceeds 15 micrograms/ml. What the hell does that mean, you say?

I’m a little unsure, but this page, titled Caffeine and the Athlete, says that you’d need to drink approximately eight cups of coffee to exceed the level for the Olympics, which is 12 micrograms/ml, although some athletes have come close to exceeding the test level after ingesting 350 mg of caffeine, which is approximately three and a half cups of coffee. Still, that’s a lot.

Still, if you have the jitters the night before the big game, New Jersey athletes, don’t drink coffee or Coke! Stick to old fashioned marijuana, which is not on the banned substance list.

N.J. takes a bold step on steroids [Inquirer]
Banned Drug Classes [NJSIAA (.pdf)]
Caffeine and the athlete [Rice.edu]