Concern on sport drugs for students

From this year, physical education performance will count for 30 points out of 630 in city high school entrance exams. Test items include sprinting, long-distance running and ball games.

Notices asking for doping recipes have popped up on Internet bulletin boards coinciding with tests underway in middle schools on April, 2008.

"I'm in urgent need of a drug that can improve my performance in short term but with few side effects," wrote a Netizen identifying herself as "Jinman Xuanfei." She explained that she was taking the 800-meter test for the high school entrance exam. Similar cases were also reported in Guangzhou, southern China's Guangdong Province.

There are no controls in place to prevent youngsters using drugs.

Educators have called on youngsters to be self-disciplined and be aware of the dangers doping can cause.

"So far no testing has been adopted in the school admission process but neither did we discover any violations," said Ping Jie, director of the Shanghai Education Commission's sports, health and art division.

"What we can do is to educate students not to use drugs," he said.

"But the possibility cannot be ruled out that individual students will take drugs for better scores."

Sports medical experts warned that drug taking could cause serious harm to health or even sudden death.

"People know that doping is effective in improving sports performance, but they tend to be ignorant of the high price they pay for that," said Chen Peijie, vice president of Shanghai University of Sport.

He said doping could damage organs, cause endocrinal disorders, cancer and heart failure.

To raise awareness of the dangers, the university is hosting the Shanghai leg of a national anti-doping promotion this week. It will also set up a youth sports health education center to help prevent youngsters from the improper use of performance-enhancing drugs during sport, Chen said.