Virginia High School League bans energy drinks

The Virginia High School League’s executive committee voted Wednesday to ban the use of energy drinks by student athletes during games and practices. The rule, which was adopted by a vote of 24-2, goes into effect immediately, said Mike McCall, a spokesman for the VHSL.

The rule stipulates that “athletes not consume energy drinks during participation in VHSL practices and competition, “ because of “potential serious safety and health issue.”

“The safety of the athletes was the overwhelming rationale for approval of the recommendation,” Tom Dolan, co-director of Athletics for the VHSL, said. “ We’ve been fortunate up to this point, but is it prudent for us to wait to see if we have an issue before we do something about this? For me the answer is absolutely not. They’re our student athletes. We have an obligation to protect them.”

The VHSL, which oversees all public schools in Virginia, considered the proposal after it was recommended by its Sports Medicine Advisory Committee. The Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association has no position on the use of energy drinks although many athletic directors, athletic trainers and coaches discourage their use.

Last month, Dr. Katherine Dec, chair of the VHSL sports medicine committee said there was enough anecdotal evidence to begin discussing the possibility of a ban in Virginia., "The kids see [the drinks] as something to give them energy," Dec said. "But it's not the physical nutritional energy that they need to perform well, so we want to try and keep with that hydration, replenishment concept. We want them to be appropriately replenished post practice and games and appropriately hydrated so they don't run into problems with heart rate, blood pressure, jitteriness -- some of the complaints from kids through the past few years after drinking these drinks."

The National Federation of State High School Associations, in its position statement on energy drinks reported that in 2006, “over 7 million adolescents reported that they had consumed and energy drink.”

Virginia’s ban, also based on the NFHS position statement, states:

• Energy drinks should not be used for hydration.
• Energy drinks should not be consumed by athletes who are dehydrated.
• There is no regulatory control over energy drinks, thus their content and purity cannot be ensured. This may lead to adverse side-effects, potentially harmful interactions with prescription medications (particularly stimulant medications used to treat ADHD), or positive drug tests.

The penalty for violation is a warning to the offending school, but that has more punch than it sounds like, because stricter penalties could follow.

"The warning carries multiple meanings in our organization," Dolan said. "If a coach intentionally distributes energy drinks at this point, then I think we would put that particular team from that particular school on warning for a year which means if it happened again during that year, they could be put on probation, which would keep them from going to the playoffs. We have those kinds of options.

"We don’t want to hammer people for stuff they don’t know. We want to educate them first, but we also don’t want any outright intentional breaking of that recommendation.”