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7 Reasons Parents Should Not Test Kids for Drug Use

News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

[In my opinion, if a parent feels the need to drug test his or her kid,
then the parent must have done such a bad job as a parent that they
should lose custody of the child.--DC]

7 Reasons Parents Should Not Test Kids for Drug Use
By Lindsay Lyon, U.S. News & World Report
Posted on August 7, 2008, Printed on August 12, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/94304/

When Kim Manlove and his wife discovered that their teenage son was
abusing pot and alcohol, they did what they thought was right: They
purchased commercially available drug-testing kits and began
administering random urine screens at home. "We thought we'd be able to
handle it on our own," recalls Manlove, 56, of Indianapolis. And for
several months it appeared that their efforts were working. The drug
tests, obtained on the Internet, consistently indicated that 15-year-old
David was alcohol free and that his marijuana levels were decreasing,
which they interpreted as a sign that he was quitting. Not so. Their son
had switched to drugs that the tests couldn't detect, such as
prescription pills and LSD. When his parents finally caught on, they
enrolled him in treatment. "Things were beyond our capability," says
Manlove.

David completed the program, but his desire to get high ultimately cost
him his life, Manlove explains. Enticed by the notion that inhalants
wouldn't register on his weekly, now professionally administered urine
tests, David and his friends spent an afternoon huffing an aerosol
(computer duster) and diving into a swimming pool because they'd heard
the underwater pressure would heighten the rush. Instead, doing so
triggered what's known as "sudden sniffing death syndrome," the gravest
consequence of inhalants. David had a heart attack and drowned at age 16.

The Manloves' experience underscores some of the pitfalls of at-home
drug testing, an increasingly popular practice among parents aiming to
stop or prevent their child's drug use. And with countless test kits
available, experts say that it's an increasingly difficult practice to
resist--though parents should.

"I don't recommend that parents ever use home drug tests," says
pediatrician Sharon Levy, director of the Adolescent Substance Abuse
Program at Children's Hospital Boston. "[They're] going to be misled."
The tests are often billed as preventive, but there's no evidence that
they actually keep kids away from drugs, she adds. Levy's stance is
echoed by numerous others, including the American Academy of Pediatrics,
which issued a 2007 statement opposing home and school drug testing
until further research is done. In hindsight, Manlove agrees: "I'd go
straight to the professionals, no question," he says. "Shame" and
"embarrassment" are the primary reasons that he and his wife didn't seek
help sooner.

Here are seven reasons why experts say drug testing should be left to
the professionals:

1. It can become a missed opportunity. Manlove, who now works as a
substance abuse prevention specialist for the state of Indiana, believes
that the six months that elapsed between he and his wife's initial
discovery of David's drug use and their procuring outside help allowed a
minor problem to become major. "That delay really worked against us," he
says. "If we had sought professional help earlier, I think we would have
had a better chance of preventing this outcome."

2. It's easy to cheat. With all the ways to cheat urine screens, says
Levy, experts worry that parents could be falsely reassured by negative
drug tests while their kid actually has a problem. "My clinical
experience tells me that parents are fooled all the time," she says.
Furthermore, Levy says parents aren't encouraged to watch their
adolescents urinate--but some testing facilities can require that urine
collection is witnessed by an observer to prevent tampering. "We do it
under controlled circumstances, and we know the tricks of the trade,"
says Peter Rogers, a clinical professor of pediatrics at Ohio State
University medical school who conducts substance abuse testing. That's
why, he says, if a drug test is warranted, it should be handled by
experienced professionals.

3. False positives can mislead you. Poppy seeds, cold medications, and
even antibiotics in high doses can potentially cause false-positive
results on certain types of tests, says Levy, leading parents to falsely
accuse innocent teens of illegal drug use.

4. Some tests are confusing. Home kits can be difficult to navigate,
says Levy, and to ask parents who have no experience with laboratory
medicine to do them correctly is "tough." Moreover, she says, parents
have to be pretty sophisticated to know the difference between
similar-sounding drug types such as opiates (e.g., heroin) and opioids
(e.g., oxycodone). Get the wrong kit, and your results could be
meaningless. "Unless you have a really good indication of what your kid
is using," says Manlove, "you're really just taking a shot in the dark."

5. They give you limited information. Most drugs clear the system pretty
quickly, says Levy, so parents would have a tough time catching a
child's occasional use.

6. And they can be costly. A package of home tests can be pricier than a
visit to a medical professional. Manlove paid roughly $50 for a six pack
of urine tests, though costs vary widely.

7. You're a parent, not the police. Some experts worry that the practice
of home drug testing may damage the parent-child bond. "I'm not sure
that's the relationship that parents want to have with their kids," says
Rogers, who himself is the parent of a former teenage drug abuser (who's
now a sober 21-year-old). "They shouldn't be policemen, just parents."

--
Dan Clore

My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://tinyurl.com/2gcoqt
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

Said Smygo, the iconoclast of Zothique: "Bear a hammer
with thee always, and break down any terminus on which
is written: 'So far shalt thou pass but no farther go.'"
-- Clark Ashton Smith

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