New, easy at-home drug test may help parents
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 11:28 am | By: Radical Russ
New, easy at-home drug test may help parents | KATU.com – Portland, Oregon | News
PORTLAND, Ore. – Parents wanting to keep their kids drug free have a new option: a first-of-its-kind drug test that only requires a little hair.Hairconfirm claims to be 99.9 percent accurate and tests for a wide variety of illegal and prescription drugs.
With just a small bit of hair – taken with or without a kids’ knowledge – parents can find out whether their child is taking drugs, the company says.
“You can see the frequency of abuse so you can find out if the person is an occasional user versus a medium user or on the very high addictive level,” said Zeynep Ilgaz, CEO of Confirm BioSciences.
Parent Kelly Bonnin likes the idea of such a test, saying there is already testing at his work.
“We have random drug testing, and why shouldn’t our kids,” he said. “That’s the future. They are our future, and we need to take care of them.”
The test sells for between $65 and $90. It is not in stores in the Portland-area yet but is available online.
That line from the parent – “we have random drug testing and why shouldn’t our kids” – sent a chill down my spine. Do you really want to treat your kids the way your boss treats you, as a “human resource”, to be tested, evaluated, and spied upon?
The American Academy of Pediatrics is against home drug testing of your kids, because they say that testing creates a climate of “resentment, distrust and suspicion” among students, parents, and school administrators.
Also, these tests aren’t catching all drugs. Their “regular” product tests for marijuana, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines, meth, ecstasy, and PCP. A new product adds to the list Vicodin, Lortab, Oxycontin, Percocet, and Dilaudid. Furthermore, they add this disclaimer:
PLEASE NOTE: In some cases, when the donor has used marijuana, a hair drug test, including HairConfirm, may be unable to detect the THC metabolite due to the fact that the metabolite was unable to bind with the hair shaft. This can be caused by the type/quality of the marijuana smoked/ingested, or by what it has been mixed with, e.g. tobacco. As a result, the result for marijuana may be negative.
So, kids, don’t use that marijuana by itself, roll it up with tobacco in a blunt!
Also, did you notice the conspicuous absence of alcohol, GHB, ketamine, and inhalants in that list? Hey, kids, don’t smoke that relatively safe marijuana, it’ll show up on your parent drug test. Try something that your folks can’t detect! Sure, those drugs, especially the inhalants, can kill you quite easily, but at least you won’t be smoking pot.
