Talk of expanding Hall schools' drug testing of athletes

GAINESVILLE - Hall County's three-year-old drug testing program for high school athletes may be expanded to include middle school athletes.

A committee, which has been formed to review the current program, will also be looking at the feasibility of expanding it, specifically , according to school system spokesman Gordon Higgins "some of the issues you would have in putting it in middle schools."

Higgins the middle school principals and the public would be given a chance to "weigh in" before anything is done. "It's not something that's going to happen in the next month or so."

Higgins says he knows of no middle schools in Georgia that mandate drug testing of athletes - and says there are still very few high schools that do.

"Since we've had the program for three years (we thought) it would be a good time to just kind of review where we've been and where we're going and see if there's anything we may want to do to change the program to make it stronger to make it stronger."

Hall County initiated testing in the fall of 2004. Higgins said earlier this month eight athletes tested positive that first year. In March, Hall conducted its ninth round of tests, and all came back negative, according to Higgins.

Other systems in northeast Georgia that conduct random drug testing are Lumpkin, Rabun and White. The tests cost around $25 per student and screen for drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, amphetamines, opiates and PCP .

The Georgia High School Association leaves the matter up to individual school systems.