A steroid drug bust in Davis County high schools is drawing attention to a concern that some teenage athletes think an Olympic dose of performance enhancers will make them swifter, higher and stronger.
"To me, the biggest fear in taking steroids isn't what we know. It is what we don't know," said Dave Wilkey, a sport-medicine expert who works at Utah's High School Activities Association. "That's our biggest concern."
And teenagers, Wilkey said, may think that if a little bit is good, "then more will be even better."
Three students were interviewed Sunday by police for allegedly making a run to Tijuana, Mexico, to procure anabolic steroids, muscle relaxants and marijuana.
Estimated street value of the drugs found on the students is $15,000, police said.
The steroids were purchased at veterinarian supply stores and made for animal consumption, said Lt. Ted Ellison, who works with the Davis Metro Narcotics Strike Force.
The juveniles purchased several bottles of the steroids and 1,100 muscle relaxant pills, he said. Police believe the pills would have been sold for $5 each and the bottles for $100 each, Ellison said.
The 16- and 17-year-old students were interviewed Sunday morning after they returned from the across-the-border trip.
Ellison said the teenagers are being investigated for possession with intent to distribute. They were not taken into custody. One of the students is 30 days away from turning 18. If he were 18, he would have been facing federal charges of transporting drugs into the United States from another country, Ellison said.
Another student also is being investigated for cultivation of marijuana. Seeds of the plant were found in his bedroom.
Ellison said parents did not know the teens had left the country. "The parents thought they were camping," he said.
A parent who heard about the suspected drug run called police Friday. Police believe 12 students chipped in $2,500 for the buy.
Investigators are trying to find out whether the students, who attend Layton, Northridge, Davis and Clearfield high schools, had made other trips to Mexico to procure and sell drugs.
Such drug runs are unusual among high school students, Ellison said. "Supposedly it's the first time for these three," he said. "But they're indicating others have done it before.
"I think this sort of thing has taken off with an older group of individuals, and now the high school kids have found out about it," Ellison said.
But investigators said Monday they did not know to what degree this particular drug problem was in the high schools or how many people were intended recipients of the drug purchase.
That part of the investigation will be handled by school resource officers at the various high schools, Ellison said.
Layton High School principal Paul Smith said despite several media reports he has heard linking the investigation to his school, he had not received any official word from police as of Monday morning. "We have no information whatsoever as to who (the juveniles) are and whether they are students. But we will fully cooperate with police," he said.
The drug probe follows a very high-profile incident in Utah County in which nine Payson High School athletes and a coach were caught sharing prescription painkillers.
Payson's players were suspended for three months. The coach, Kevin Gunn Poulsen, was charged with two counts of distributing a controlled substance in a drug-free zone and one count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Evan Excell, an administrator at the Utah High School Activities Association, said "isolated cases" of drug and steroid use have been seen in the eight years he's been at the association.
"But this is the most I've seen in the whole time I've been here."
Utah's activities association has taken a strong stance against the use of steroids and other banned performance enhancers.
"Use of any drug, medication or food supplement in a way not prescribed by the manufacturer should not be authorized or encouraged by school personnel and coaches. Even natural substances in unnatural amounts may have short-term or long-term negative health effects," says the association's handbook.
Davis School District's director of secondary schools Paul R. Waite said the district plans to launch an investigation.
"It's one thing to take drugs. It's certainly another to distribute them," he said. "We take these things very seriously."
While the district has been aware of other drug distribution problems in its schools, Waite said in his 30-plus years working in the field of education this is the first time he has heard of students banding together and running the border to buy drugs.
"We know that Davis is not immune to it. We do not have our head in the sand," he said.
Students who violate anti-drug policies face discipline, including suspension and expulsion, according to educators.
Wilkey said research shows there are negative physical and emotional consequences for taking anabolic steroids, which are man-made substances related to male sex hormones. "Anabolic" refers to muscle building.
The drugs can be used legally to help the body produce testosterone. Doctors use steroids to treat delayed puberty and some types of impotence.
Major side effects from abusing anabolic steroids include liver tumors and cancer, high blood pressure, kidney tumors, severe acne and trembling. There also are gender-specific side effects.
Users also often experience depression and aggression, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
A national study called "Monitoring the Future" showed an increase in illicit anabolic steroid usage among teens — and a decrease in the perceived risk.
The study of students in middle and high schools, which was funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, estimated that 2.7 percent of eighth-graders and high school sophomores and 2.9 percent of high school seniors had taken anabolic steroids at least once in their lives.
It also shows a marked rise in use from 1991, the first year data on steroid abuse was collected from students in middle school by the NIDA researchers. Nine years ago, researchers said 1.9 percent of eighth-graders, 1.8 percent of 10th-graders and 2.1 percent of seniors said they'd taken anabolic steroids.
Contributing: Elyse Hayes, Pat Reavy
E-MAIL: lhancock@desnews.com; jeffh@desnews.com