What do Barry Bonds, Chris Benoit, and Eddie Guerrero have in common? STEROIDS. People do not understand what they are doing to their bodies when they take that one pill, or that one shot. They do not know what the consequences might be for what they are about to inject into their bodies.

For my topic I picked, should high school athletes be tested for steroid use? I believe that all student athletes from high schools around the nation should be tested for the reasons I am going to state.

There was a sixteen year old high school student athlete by the name of Taylor Hooton, he loved the sports he played because he was 6’2 180 pound boy that was very athletic in anything he did. Taylors coach told him that if he wanted to seriously start playing in the next year that he need to get “bigger”. Most people would think that the meaning of that would be going to the gym, working out a lot, and drinking/eating lots of stuff containing protein. That wasn’t good enough for Taylor, he needed to get big and he needed to do it fast. Though Taylor later stopped using all the steroids he was taking it was the post-steroid depression that most likely caused him to commit suicide by hanging himself in his families house. That is one of the many cases today that include the deaths or injuries of people due to steroid use.

Even though having kids being tested for steroids might be classified as invading personal life, I believe it needs to be done. Steroids are a very deadly drug for people especially young kids to get involved with. It is estimated that 3% to 6% of students in the U.S. have tried steroids. That means that, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of high school students are using them. A recent study also found that 57% of high school steroid users said they would risk shortening their life for increased performance. Are you willing to take the lazy way out by doing something to hurt yourself, steroids can do things to your body like… Weaken the immune system, they can lead to liver damage, or even cancer, they can cause bones to stop growing, women to become hairy, testicular shrinking these are all physical things that steroids can do. They can also cause mood swings, affect your memory and learning, and cause depression and irritability.

I believe that testing high school students is a tremendous idea for the safety of teenager’s health.