AHS board talking about drug testing athletes? In a recent interview with Dr. Unzicker, I asked him,“ I heard that AHS is eventually going to start drug testing athletes. Is this true?” He said it was brought up by the community but nothing is official. He also gave his opinion and said, “If there is a drug issue at our school, we don’t need to test students, we need to educate them. We’re not out to get students, we are out to help them.”

          If the school officially decided to drug test our athletes at Alliance High School, Dr. Unzicker thinks that all students involved in any extracurricular activities should be drug tested. I asked Dr. Jones “As principle of our school, what is you opinion about drug testing athletes?” He responded by saying, “I support it. I think if your going to represent our school and wear the uniform I think you need to be clean and be a good role model, and, oh yeah, its against the law.”

          Some of the positive things about drug testing would be “possibly eliminating drugs from our school,” and some of the negative things would be “deciding when to drug test and who all should be drug tested,” said Mr. Wallace. Another negative thing about drug testing would be coming up with the money to afford drug tests for all the athletes. Also addressing some of the feedback from the students who are being drug tested and possibly even the parents could be defensive. In another interview with senior Caitlyn Tritle, I asked her, “What do you think are some of the negative things about drug testing?” She said, “It gives you self doubt that people don’t trust you, and that you’re frowned upon for being an athlete.”  Her overall opinion was that, “Everyone would hate it. It would give us negative thoughts. Rumors could be started.”

           Drug testing is something that will be further discussed, and only time will tell, what will take place.