Pubdate: Tue, 06 May 2003
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: Daniel Nasaw

AT-HOME DRUG TESTS SHOW AN UPWARD TREND IN SALES

Nearly half of today's teens have used drugs. And a small but growing 
number of parents are trying at-home drug tests to figure out if their 
child might be in the wrong half.

Since the home-testing kits were introduced four years ago, sales to 
parents have grown to about $10 million to $12 million a year, according to 
industry estimates. While the numbers are still small, there is a sharp 
upward trend. In the first quarter, sales of the top-selling At Home brand 
rose 60% from a year earlier.

The tests have been available since 1999, but awareness of them has grown 
since the Supreme Court last year cleared the way for schools to test 
children in certain activities. Closely held Phamatech Inc., maker of the 
At Home brand, estimates that currently only about 5% of consumers know 
about the tests, but "certainly awareness is going to grow," says Phamatech 
spokesman Carl Mongiovi.

To that end, Phamatech is sending information about its products to more 
than 5,000 U.S. antidrug groups. The company has also hooked up as a 
sponsor with the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, which 
sends info about the company to its members, who work within a special 
judiciary system that emphasizes rehab for some drug offenders, aiming to 
keep them out of jail.

Phamatech, based in San Diego, is hoping that the drug court workers will 
recommend the at-home tests to people who come through the drug court system.

The kits, which range from $15 to $30 for a one-test package, screen urine 
for the presence of marijuana, cocaine , opiates and other drugs. Parents 
dip a paper strip into the urine sample or apply drops of urine to the 
test, and wait for it to change color, much like a home pregnancy test.

One mother in Irvine, Calif., said the drug test was a lifesaver. When she 
grew concerned about her 16-year-old daughter, who had used drugs in the 
past, she bought a $30 drug test and administered it in the daughter's 
bathroom. The results indicated speed, so she fired her daughter's 
therapist and got her treatment with a substance-abuse counselor.

"If we didn't drug-test her, if we had just went on our merry way, she 
could have been dead now," says the mother, who spoke on condition of 
anonymity.

Illicit drug use among teenagers has actually fallen slightly in recent 
years, according to a study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 
In 2002, 44.6% of tenth graders said they had used drugs in their lifetime, 
down from 45.6% in 2001. The study, conducted by the University of 
Michigan, found that 20.8% of tenth-graders said they had used drugs in the 
past 30 days, down from 22.7% in 2001.

Among the nation's top drug-abuse experts, the jury is still out on at-home 
tests. More important than testing, they say, is communication within the 
family. "You want to start talking to your kids well before the point where 
you think there's even a possibility where you're going to be checking if 
they've already used drugs," says Howard Simon, spokesman for the 
Partnership for a Drug-Free America (sponsors of the famed "This is your 
brain on drugs" ads).

Other antidrug advocates say that parents should make use of all available 
tools. "Drug testing is a useful deterrent with proven results in the 
military and workplace," says Katherine Ford, a spokeswoman for the Drug 
Free America Foundation Inc., a nonprofit educational organization and 
information clearinghouse in St. Petersburg, Fla. "It's reasonable that we 
would want to use that same resource to keep our kids off drugs."

Stopping at Walgreens and buying a test is a lot easier than administering 
it, regardless of how simple it might be to use. Just asking for a test 
implies mistrust by a parent. Resentful teens often balk at cooperating or 
cunningly find ways to thwart the accuracy of the test. There are a variety 
of drinks and urine additives children can buy that claim to break down or 
mask evidence of drug use. And simply drinking large amounts of water 
before the test will dilute the urine and make it harder to detect drugs. A 
negative result, then, is no guarantee of a drug-free child.

Certain legal substances, such as codeine and ephedrine, can cause a 
false-positive result.

Children can also refrain from using drugs if they know a test is coming, 
although marijuana use can be detected for up to three or even four weeks, 
manufacturers say. Cocaine is detectable only up to three days after use.

Francisco Rojas, chief scientist at Worldwide Medical Corp., a Lake Forest, 
Calif., manufacturer of at-home drug tests, says that kits are reliable 
only when parents establish a chain of custody of the urine sample, and 
recommends that parents "observe the collection of the sample."

The Food and Drug Administration requires test makers to furnish a free 
confirmation test to be performed in a lab. And manufacturers must provide 
a hotline for customers to call with questions. Phamatech says it gets 
about 800 such calls a week from parents, and refers some callers to 
drug-treatment centers.

Phamatech contends that just the idea of the test looming can help steer 
children away from trying drugs. Some of its recent newspaper ads boast: 
"99% accurate, 100% confidential, and it often works without even opening 
the box."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens