But having worked with high school athletes for more than 25 years, I can say with at least some degree of confidence that drug use among athletes is at a lower level than non-athletes. Steroid use is not as rampant as isolated scandals might lead you to believe, and recreational drugs are still much more popular among today's version of those potheads than jocks. All of which makes Logan County's decision to test athletes for drugs ludicrous. If the county finds that even a small percentage of its athletes are using drugs, it should then probably double or triple the number in estimating use among non-athletes. And even that won't begin to touch the real number.
Athletes are an easy target.
But if you want to find the real users, start with the ones who aren't in sports, band, the chess club or any other activity. Arena Football League officials had hoped to attract at least 7,500 fans to the Civic Center Saturday for their Charleston test drive of the sport. They got barely half that. That's not a good omen. Granted, the whole thing might have been a lot of fun, but this city has a long history of supporting minor league franchises for about as long as it takes for the novelty to wear off.