Is Home Drug Testing A Parental Necessity Or Overreaction?

So I found this interesting article that had a trackback to my California teens on ‘scrips post… I think their “related posts” feature just scans for keywords without regard for content, because I couldn’t have a more opposite view:

…I suggest that parents would be well served to sit down with their children and start talking about a home drug testing program as early as middle school…. If the idea of drug testing your teens sounds unreasonable, consider how much times have changed. If someone told me when I was in high school by the time my son attended middle school, that police officers (now affectionately referred to as school resource officers) and dogs trained to detect drugs would patrol school hallways, I would have never believed it. Metal detectors and school shootings aren’t nightmares: they have become a reality.

…Dr. Michael Reznicek, a medical doctor with emergency room experience, actually developed a software program that facilitates the initial parent-child conversation and eliminates potential misunderstandings by creating a contract that spells out specific rewards and consequences tied to home drug test results. The software also becomes the preferred target of potential animosity over requests for hair, urine, or saliva samples for drug testing purposes because it also selects random testing dates.

From the time children are very young, they’re taught to ‘just say no’ to drugs, and I’m convinced that the peer pressure usually gets worse when they do. Teens don’t know what to say next. Parents who follow through with a home drug testing program give their teens a socially acceptable excuse. The words ‘My parents test me’ stop pushy peers in their tracks.

The final component of a successful program is effective parental follow-through. Teens want their parents to trust them. If they think their parents are naïve and/or won’t test them, they are more likely to try drugs because they don’t expect to get caught. While teens place a high value on maintaining their parents’ trust, they just don’t feel it is in jeopardy without testing. Teens’ behavior and choices change when they know that it is a near certainty rather than a virtual impossibility that their drug use will be discovered.

Mason Duchatschek has interviewed thousands of parents, teenagers, school board members, counselors, school principals and superintendents. He is the president of TestMyTeen.com (mason@testmyteen.com) based in Fenton, Missouri.

So, of course, I had to reply.  I doubt the moderator will post it (bad for business, after all) so here it is:

Drug test your kids? Yes, another pseudo-science quick-fix for bad parenting, that’s what we need.

If you’re at the point of mis- or non-communication with your teen that you need a chemical assay of the metabolites of their urine to know whether they are using drugs, you’ve got bigger issues to deal with. If you’re at the point of suspecting, but not knowing, what are you using the test for, to shame your child at the kitchen table courtroom? “Your honor, I can PROVE the defendant lied about smoking a joint at that Killers concert!”

Please, stop it. Drug testing your kids is a bad idea. Don’t take my word for it, believe the pediatricians:

“From November 2000 to June 2003, Sharon Levy, M.D., and colleagues at the Children’s Hospital Corp. in Boston analyzed the features of home drug-testing kits for adolescents available through the Internet. They also examined recommendations that drug-testing companies offered parents to guide them in using these products. As a result of this project: The Committee on Substance Abuse of the American Association of Pediatrics amended its adolescent drug-testing policy to include a statement discouraging home drug testing by parents.  http://www.rwjf.org/reports/grr/040557.htm

I surfed to this site based on a trackback to my post above, “Teen’s Marijuana Use Steady”. The excerpt doesn’t show the relevant portion, which is that drug testing your child at home or at school just creates incentive for the use of harder drugs, like alcohol, or as in the case of this California study, prescription drugs:

The newly released biennial Attorney General’s Survey of Student Drug Use in California shows that marijuana use among 7th, 9th and 11th graders remained stable during 2007-8, but reports an “alarming rate” of prescription drug abuse.

Everybody knows that pot, out of any substance you can take for intoxication, is the one that remains detectable for the longest period of time. Everybody knows that if you are caught with even the residue of marijuana, you’re going to jail, losing your scholarships, maybe your job, and altering your life forever.

But if you pop a few of the pills you find in mom and dad’s medicine cabinet, you won’t be tested for it, you’ll get a lot higher, it’s harder to find (no smell) and conceal, and even if you are caught, you still get student aid and keep your job. What teenager seeking a thrill wouldn’t choose the pills over pot?  Once again, prohibition maximizes the harm.

(Mason, if you happen to read this and would like to discuss your position on home drug testing teens, I would respectfully welcome you as an interview guest on my podcast. I deal with the issues of parents and teens and marijuana and drug testing quite often. I do not want teens using marijuana, but I believe I have better ideas to achieve that goal.)

Russ Belville
Host – NORML Daily Audio Stash

http://stash.norml.org