May 14

Parents turn to home drug tests for teenagers, but should they?

The mother in Boulder, Colo., had been down this road with one child and swore she would never make a return trip. When she became suspicious her youngest son was trying drugs, she went to Walgreens, plunked down $38 for a home drug-test kit and told him to pee in a cup.The high school junior was furious. And busted.

“Don’t you trust me?” he wailed.

His mother would not budge.

Finally, reluctantly, the 16-year-old, whose name is not being used to protect his privacy, confessed: The reason he didn’t want to take the test was that it would be positive.

His mother thanked him for his honesty and gave him 30 days to clean up his act. There would be another test when he least expected. A month later, she sent him back to the bathroom, cup in hand. He passed.

In the year since, she hasn’t tested him again. But that doesn’t mean she won’t. She keeps a test in the house, just in case.

What makes this mother’s private act of parental vigilance so extraordinary is not that she and tens of thousands of other parents have bought into the multimillion-dollar industry of home drug testing.

It’s that parents do so despite warnings from most major drug-abuse and treatment

professionals, the nation’s medical establishment, parenting experts and even the White House. All call home-testing teens a bad idea.”I guess home testing is better than no testing,” said a skeptical Bertha Madras, the White House’s deputy drug czar.

But her Office of National Drug Control Policy does not encourage parents to take matters into their own hands. Instead, the Bush administration backs random school drug testing, arguing schools are better equipped to help with counseling and referrals if a problem is found.

“By the time a parent tests, it’s already far down the road,” Madras said. “If they get a positive result, then what? Parents may or may not have the skill to proceed.”

In March, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement opposing both home drug testing and involuntary drug testing in schools. The medical group prefers that worried parents have their children tested by qualified doctors or treatment specialists because of the possibility of error or tampering.

“It’s deceptively simple, but the truth is, it’s actually a very complicated issue,” said Dr. Sharon Levy, who specializes in childhood addiction at Children’s Hospital Boston.

Levy has studied the meteoric rise of home drug testing since the federal Food and Drug Administration first approved the kits in 1997. She worries not only about inaccuracy but also about eroding trust during a time when many teens are already pulling away.

Most tests use a litmus strip to detect traces of drugs or byproducts in urine. Others check hair samples or saliva. As many as 12 illicit and prescription drugs can be detected.

Still, experts worry the home tests are not sophisticated enough to catch low levels or every drug being used.

“Parents are motivated by the best of intentions,” Levy said. “They are told by marketers this is a good thing to do. But drug testing is basically a threat. And while it might have some short-term behavioral changes, I don’t think it’s a good long-term prevention method.”

Abuse by teens of prescription drugs, such as Vicodin and OxyContin, remains a problem. However, the most recent survey of 50,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders by Monitoring the Future shows the use of illicit drugs, such as marijuana, actually is decreasing. Monitoring the Future, a study by University of Michigan researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health, has tracked drug use among adolescents since 1975.

Still, the drug-testing business has never been better.

Last year, sales by industry leader Phamatech Inc. topped $27 million, said Carl Mongiovi, vice president of the San Diego company. He said sales included more than 431,000 marijuana tests alone.

Since Phamatech introduced the first home tests in 1999, sales have increased by more than 30 percent each year.

In Colorado Springs, Colo., single mother Amanda Beihl was one of the first to carve out a business from Internet sales.

Beihl created homedrugtestingkit.com and last year sold more than 100,000 kits to test for illicit and prescription drugs and alcohol use. She said her sales are proof of a pendulum swing toward stricter parenting.