With steroid-testing in Texas on the brink of elimination for tens of thousands of Texas high school student-athletes, news came late last week that the Texas Rangers Baseball Foundation has partnered with the Texas-based discontinued its efforts in 2009. Supporters of the testing, including Hooton, say the program acts as a deterrent and that eliminating it would only encourage steroid use. "It's like a school district that has a serious gun violence problem and puts up metal detectors," Hooton - who favors a smaller-scale program that would target sports most likely to breed PED users - told the Associated Press. "When gun violence goes down, they say 'Well, that's a waste of money, let's take the metal detectors away because we don't have a problem anymore.' " Jeff Horn, principal at Green Valley High in Henderson, Nev., calls the Texas Legislature's funding excuse a "cop out." Green Valley started Nevada's first public school drug-testing program in 2008 and hasn't had a positive test yet for steroids. But that won't stop him from continuing the program after federal grant money runs out this year, he told the AP. "It's not about athletics anymore," Horn said. "It's about saving lives."
