Study Finds Men’s Lax Players Use Drugs More Than Any Other College Athlete

According to a study done by the NCAA’s quadrennial survey from athletes for the 2009 year, lacrosse players led all other sports in the use of amphetamines, anabolic steroids, cocaine, marijuana and narcotics.

In fact, lacrosse players beat out all other sports in illicit drug use by a wide margin. For example with marijuana use, 48.5 percent of lacrosse players used, ahead of soccer players at 29.4 percent and wrestlers at 27.7 percent. Football players were sixth, at 26.7 percent, and men’s basketball players were ninth at 22 percent.

Since the survey was last conducted in 2005, “college athletes have increased their use of drugs, including, alcohol (83.1 percent, up from 77.5 percent), cigarettes (15.5 percent from 14.6 percent), marijuana (22.6 percent from 21.2 percent) and spit tobacco (17.4 percent from 15.7 percent)”.

The only group to top the alcohol consumption of lacrosse players (95 percent) was ice hockey players (95.5 percent).

Source: Bloomberg