FHSAA reviewing drug policies

Posted on August 9, 2013

In an aggressive move this week to protect teens from the ongoing threat of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), the head of the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) asked the organization’s medical policy experts to conduct a top-to-bottom review of existing policies to determine what additional measures can be enacted to prevent the use of improper substances by high school student-athletes.

Dr. Roger Dearing, FHSAA’s executive director, asked the association’s Sports Medicine Advisory Committee to conduct a thorough review of existing standards to determine how they can be strengthened to stop the trend of PED use among professional and college athletes from spreading throughout prep sports. Dearing noted that under existing FHSAA sportsmanship bylaws and policies student-athletes can be suspended from competing if they have used PEDs, but Dearing suggested that these prohibitions may be insufficient in light of recent allegations that South Florida high school athletes received PEDs as part of the Biogenesis scandal.

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