Steroid use in school rugby on the rise

The South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport wants permission from all schools in the country to test schoolchildren as often as possible for illegal performance-enhancing drugs. This comes after the revelation of a huge increase in schoolboy rugby players using illegal anabolic steroids.

Tests conducted by Joburg company Drug Detection International on pupils at 18 of the country’s top schools found 21 out of 130 pupils – almost one in six – tested positive for illegal steroids.

Commissioned independently by various schools, Drug Detection International sent urine samples for analysis to a forensic laboratory in the US.

They found positive results for two pupils of St Albans, Pretoria; three pupils of King Edward VII in Joburg; and found that one boy from St John’s in Joburg had twice the amount of testosterone levels for a teenager his age.

Fifteen of the other pupils who tested positive were from private schools in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. At least 12 were caught with banned steroids in their possession.

The Department of Basic Education, however, has not noted steroid use as a serious problem. The department doesn’t conduct drug tests for sport.

Director of the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport Dr Shuaib Manjra said a comprehensive approach was required.

“The first is educating pupils about ethical sport; no dirty play, no racism, no cheating, no bribery and no doping,” said Manjra.

“We also need to teach pupils approaches to enhancing performance without using prohibited substances.”

Manjra added that the second step was to test in order to detect and deter those who cheat. “Here we require the assistance of the schools, parents and coaches.

“We need a legislative framework or, alternatively, a consensus policy for all schools to abide by. Once we have jurisdiction, then we require resources to introduce these programmes into schools, this would include education, testing and prosecution. We also require parental consent,” he said.

With South Africa the only country on the continent to have a World Anti Doping Agency-accredited laboratory, Manjra said there was no need to send samples as far as the US to be tested.

Health Urine Drug Test – Detection Period And Cutoff Levels Of ...

Urinalysis is the most typical test type for drug testing. Detection of a drug within the specimen is usually depending on the detection period and the cutoff levels. Detection period means as much as what number days the drug testing can reveal the presence of gear in specimen. The urine drug test results are matched with cutoff levels, that are already organize by SAMHSA.

Detection Period of drugs Drug detection time will depend on few factors like, time when drug is taken, frequency of use, sort of specimen, drug testing method, and metabolism. An appropriate time to detect the presence of drug in urine specimen is within the morning, because the chance of detecting drugs is more in morning when put next to other times.

Consistent with LabCrop, the subsequent are detection periods of few drugs that are identified in urine drug test. Approximate detection period for Alcohol is 3-5 days, 2-4 days for Methamphetamine, 7-14 days for Phenobarbital, 1 day for Codeine, 2 days for Morphine, 3 days for Methadone and a pair of-4 days for Cocaine.

Cutoff Levels of substances in Tests Minimum concentrations of medicine or metabolites that are supposed to found in specimens are called as drug testing cutoff levels. Levels of medicine depends upon few such things as amount of consumption, frequency of use, metabolic use, body mass, age and overall health. SAMHSA has hooked up the cutoff levels that are used as standard in analyzing the test results. Cutoff levels are measured in nanogram per milliliter (ng/ml). If the test results are below the cutoff levels then test result’s negative, if results are above cutoff levels then test result’s positive.

In line with About.com, here are cutoff levels for some common drugs that are identified in urine drug test. Cutoff levels for Marijuana metabolites for initial drug testing are 50ng/ml and 15ng/ml for confirmatory drug test. For Phencyclidine (PCP) 25ng/ml is the cutoff level for both initial and confirmatory drug test. Amphetamines cutoff levels are 500ng/ml and 250ng/ml for initial and confirmatory cutoff levels respectively. Cocaine has 150ng/ml for initial and 100ng/ml for confirmatory cutoff levels. For any drug test, if results are below initial cutoff levels then lab reports it as negative. If the test results are above initial cutoff level then they could opt for confirmatory test.

Drugs are detected when drug test is conducted on urine specimen, this test is simple to accomplish and result’s known in minutes of testing. Detection time and cutoff levels of drug plays the most important role in evaluating the result of drug test.

BMJ, British medical journal

Adult psychopathology and diagnosis

American journal of diseases of children

JAMA., The Journal of the American Medical Association

Substance abuse assessment and diagnosis, a comprehensive guide for counselors and helping professionals