UH to begin PED testing program for athletes

Saying "we want them to know that we are watching," University of Hawaii athletic director Ben Jay said the department plans to shortly begin testing for performance enhancing substances and also initiate random testing.

Although UH has had a drug testing program for 26 years, it has tested for so-called street drugs and not previously included PEDs. Nor has it made random tests except in cases of "reasonable suspicion," officials said.

"In this day and age it (random testing) is a must have," Jay told the Board of Regents.

"What we are proposing to do in this new policy is to randomly test for both (performance enhancing substances and street drugs). As soon as we finish with the disciplinary language rewrite, we will implement the enhanced random testing," Jay said in a text statement to the Star-Advertiser.

Currently, UH tests only incoming freshmen and transfers as part of preseason physical exams. In addition, UH may test any of its athletes in cases of "reasonable suspicion," said Marilyn Moniz-Kaho‘ohanohano, associate athletic director. About 150-170 athletes are tested each year, she said. That amounts to approximately 30-34 percent of UH athletes.

Jay said UH will double its current drug testing budget to "about $50,000 per year" to cover the expansion.

The NCAA tests at its championship events and may test randomly throughout the year but tests less than 4 percent of the 400,000 athletes under its jurisdiction annually.

Each year, UH athletes must attend sessions about drug use and are warned of potential penalties. "But every once in a while you’ve got to back it up and let them know that we are watching," Jay said. "I think it is a necessary deterrent."

UH is one of the last to adopt random drug testing, school officials said. A 2009 NCAA survey across Divisions, I, II and III showed 92 to 96 percent of schools had adopted random testing.

UH declined to say how many athletes have failed drug tests in recent years. But figures previously obtained under the state’s open records law showed 21 confirmed positive findings between 2002-03 and 2004-05, approximately 2.4 percent of those tested.

Insider Higher Education reported a 1.8 percent positive rate for random NCAA championship testing from 2002-03 through 2004-05.

Currently, the UH Student-Athlete Handbook says that, following a first confirmed positive test, an athlete may be withheld from competition or practice. A second positive test requires a medical evaluation and 30-day suspension from athletic participation. A third positive test requires a medical evaluation and a one-year suspension from athletic participation.

Jay said proposed new penalties were still being evaluated by the office of general counsel.