Substance Abuse Testing can begin the conversation

We at ON-SITE Medical Testing believe that drug and alcohol testing can be a good way to begin communicating honestly with your teenager. When we confront teens and ask them if they are using drugs or alcohol, they will often deny it. A drug test is the only way to know for certain if your child is using illegal drugs.

You don’t need a drug test to talk about drugs

It is always a good time to speak with your children about your concerns about drug use. Even a ten or twelve year old child will have been exposed to information about drugs at school and from friends. This information is sometimes inaccurate and often confusing. Beginning an open conversation about drug use in a relaxed, casual way is a good way to find out what your children have heard and what their beliefs about drug use are. This is a good time to listen and learn!

The message of love

It is very important that you start conversations about drugs by telling your children how much you care about them and that you are concerned for their safety and well-being. It is better not to preach, scold, or try to frighten them. Instead, tell them you love them and that you feel worried and concerned.

Keep the lines of communication open

By doing more listening than talking during conversations with your kids, you learn what their thoughts and feelings are. The less time you spend telling them what they should do and criticizing them for what they do, the more likely that you will learn their true thoughts about drugs. If you can listen without judging them, you may be the person they come to for help when they face important decisions such as feeling tempted or pressured to get high.

There’s a belief behind the behavior

Once a test confirms that your teen has used drugs or alcohol, you know the truth. Screaming, yelling, threatening and punishing are not effective in getting your teenager to stop using. It is important to understand the reasons behind drug use, before we can change the behavior. This can be learned by careful listening and it may take more than one conversation. If the conversation proves too difficult, meeting with a professional counselor or therapist is indicated.

Teenagers using drugs need understanding and guidance

Most parents who learn that their teenagers are using drugs become very upset and worried. They immediately imagine their child as an addict, getting high and living a life without purpose. The reality of teenage drug use however is somewhat different. Teenagers are explorers and often try new things. Because you have discovered that your teen used drugs once, doesn’t necessarily mean that they will continue to do so. Gain their trust by having an honest conversation and you may find out that your teenager has already decided against using drugs.

Don’t ask…test

Remember that the only sure way to know if your child is using drugs is by drug testing. Because teenagers may not tell you the truth about their drug use, learn to trust your instincts. If you begin to feel suspicious and worried, ask your teenager to take a drug test so that you will know the truth.

Test again if you feel worried again

The patterns of drug and alcohol use by teenagers can be likened to alcohol use among adults. Most adults have an occasional drink with dinner or at a party. A small number however, become abusers of alcohol and it becomes a problem for them. Most teenagers do not become addicted to drugs and many discontinue their use on their own. For some, drug use becomes a problem and intervention becomes necessary. By testing periodically, you will have a better understanding of whether your child needs further help.

It is very important for your relationship with your teenager that you approach them with understanding. It is very difficult to help them if you don’t have all the facts or if you allow yourself to overreact.

Neil Stolmaker is the President of ON-SITE Medical Testing Inc. OSMTI provides low-cost, high quality substance abuse testing programs to businesses, individuals and organizations. Our focus is on empowering employers and employees to work together for safe, drug free workplaces. Our web site offers tips and help for employers of all kinds. http://www.osmti.com

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Hopefully none of the bad experiences in our lives will revolve around the taking of illegal drugs. However, some people’s lives do encounter meeting up with illegal drugs. In fact, many professional and amateur athletes are subjected to random drug testing both before and after competing in their respective sports. Moreover, most Olympic athletes are subjected to random drug tests every day that they are at the site of an Olympics. Plus, there are other substances that amateur athletes can’t have while they are competing. One such substance that amateur athletes, such as Olympic athletes, can’t have during competition are caffeine. Therefore, amateur athletes, such as Olympic athletes can’t have coffee, tea, or chocolate before competing. Caffeine can probably be detected in a person’s body by taking a sample of their urine, their hair, their saliva, or their sweat. The most popular and the quickest form of drug testing is the urine test. However, a saliva drug test can be used in order to detect illegal drugs in the body as well. Let’s take a closer look at a urine and saliva drug test.

A drug is commonly a technical examination of urine, blood, sweat, hair, or oral fluid samples such as saliva in order to detect the presence or the absence of specific drugs or their metabolized traces. A urine drug test simply requires a person to provide a sample of urine to a qualified professional for testing and either a test card is used right at the doctor’s office for immediate results or the urine sample is sent out to a laboratory in order to be tested for illegal drugs.

In addition, a saliva drug test can generally detect use of illegal drugs during the last few days. Plus, a saliva drug test is becoming more widely used than other drug tests such as hair drug tests because they are convenient and the fact that they can’t easily be altered. Did you know that many jobs require that people get either a urine drug test or a saliva drug test before an offer of employment is made? Therefore, don’t be surprised if you have to take either a urine drug test or a saliva drug sometime in your life.

What are you going to do if she tests positive?

First, be aware that the tests are not 100% reliable. A positive result should be confirmed at your doctor’s office.

Second, be aware that drug testing is not the same thing as treatment. A confirmed positive result will require a response from you.

Will you call a drug and alcohol abuse counselor?
Will you tell your teen to stop and let her know you will continue testing randomly?
Will you sit down with her and find out what is going on in her world, and why she is using?
Will you ground her until she turns 18?
Will you call the parents of her friends?
Will you rant and rave and threaten and then hope you scared her straight?

Obviously, some of these interventions are more effective than others! The point, for the purpose of this article anyway, is Plan Ahead.

What are you going to do if he tests negative?

Will you offer a reward or an incentive?
Will you speak a quiet word of appreciation for your son’s character and good decisions?
Will you scowl and wonder out loud how he cleaned up so fast?
Will you coldly remind him that he’ll have to do this again sometime soon?
Will you thank him for his patience and understanding?

How are you going to bring it up?

The best time to do this is before you suspect she is involved with drugs. However, if it’s too late for that, here’s one possible way to broach the subject.

Honey, we know it’s tough to be a teenager today, and that you face a lot of temptation. We wouldn’t feel like we were doing a good job as parents if we didn’t make use of every possible tool at our disposal to support you in making healthy choices.

We want you to know that we bought a home drug test today, and we’d like you to take it. We’ve decided it makes sense to randomly test you periodically until you are 18. We hope that you understand why we are doing this - we care about you very much, and your health and well being are very important to us.

Please take this into the bathroom, and when you come out, no matter what the results are, we want to hear what you think and feel about all of this.

Unless she’s a civil rights advocate who passionately advocates for teen privacy laws on the debate team, if your teen freaks out, she is giving you a big clue about the impending result, yes? Give the test anyway. It’s very important that you follow through.

Please notice, this talk did not sound like this: I know you are using drugs and lying to me about it! Go take this test right now, and I’ll have proof that I am right about you! What red-blooded kid could take this sitting down? You’ll have a nasty power struggle on your hands. If you take responsibility for it yourself, rather than blaming or predicting or implying that her character is flawed, things usually go more smoothly.

Random drug testing can be a fantastic deterrent to peer pressure. “No way, my parents could test me anytime!” is a pretty strong reason to Just Say No that other kids easily understand. Start testing while they are in middle school to maximize this benefit, and keep it up all the way until high school graduation. It will just become a way of life for your teenager.

This article only scratches the surface of this emotionally charged topic. If you’d like some help figuring out the best way to handle this in your family, I’m available by phone for parenting consultations. For more information, visit http://www.karenalonge.com/forclients.htm

You may also be interested in the articles and information at http://www.drugtestyourteen.com

copyright 2008 karen alonge

The process of performing a hair drug test is fairly simple. Hair samples are taken from any part of the subject’s body, preferably from the head, and tested at a chemical laboratory for detecting the presence of different kinds of drugs including marijuana, cocaine, opiates (morphine, codeine etc.), and amphetamines (e.g. Ecstasy). It is not very useful for subjects to try to get a negative result by shaving their head because hair samples from other body parts also provide evidence of drug abuse. Further, in case hair is not available, hair follicles can be tested for a particular class of drug without affecting the accuracy of the test. This can be much more painful for the subject on account of the extraction of hair follicles out of the skin.

A hair drug test should always be performed at an accredited chemical laboratory, showing whether the drug exists (positive) in the hair or not (negative). The result also shows, in case of a positive result, whether the subject is an occasional or high-level user. Efficient laboratories usually provide the test’s result in two days after receiving the sample. It is important not to mix hair from different body parts in a single sample i.e. hair collected from head are not to be mixed with that from the body. Also, samples collected from hairbrush, or some other object of use, are not recommended for testing.

Conducting a hair drug test of prospective employees is a growing trend in the US despite the cons of hair drug testing. While advocates of hair drug test stress that the results are not affected significantly by usual treatments like shampooing or dying etc., some studies claim that hair washed with certain brands of shampoos show a significantly lower concentration of drugs. Hair testing procedures have also been criticized for being racially biased, particularly against Africans. Further, hair tests may not prove sensitive for certain kinds of drugs, e.g. pot. Despite these points of criticism, the trend of using a hair drug test for determining a history of drug abuse is on a rise in the US.

Rather than send potential employees (or employees chosen for random testing) to a clinical laboratory, some employers have begun performing their own on-site drug testing. Benefits of on-site drug testing include cost, convenience and accuracy.

The most commonly used method in on-site drug testing is the oral swab. Employers like this method because it costs only about $1.00 for each test. This is a huge amount of savings compared to urine or other lab tests. Additionally, obtaining a sample for testing via oral testing is significantly less embarrassing for employees than obtaining a urine sample. Oral testing is also fast. Instead of waiting 24 to 48 hours for results, an on-site drug test of this kind produces results in only about ten minutes. With an accuracy rate of about 98%, many employers are turning to this quick and cost-effective way to screen their staff.

Other employers prefer the continued use of urine samples. One product used for on-site urine testing is a urine dipstick. By collecting the urine sample in the provided cup, a human resources officer can test the urine for the presence of drugs for up to eight hours. These specially designed cups keep the urine at room temperature for several hours, ensuring a fresh sample.

Cost and convenience are also reasons for on-site drug testing. This may be especially important to small businesses with limited resources. By eliminating potential drug abusers and saving on costs from testing, employers are finding on-site drug testing to be a pleasant alternative to traditional means.

Drug Testing Info provides detailed information about employee, random, high school, hair, and urine drug testing and drug testing kits. Drug Testing Info is the sister site of Prescription Drugs Addiction Web.

The only sample required is hair of the subject which is analyzed to detect evidence of drug abuse. As usual with any abuse detection test in the market, there are products which are purportedly capable of cheating the hair follicle drug testing process and returning a clean result. The more prominent among these that are doing brisk business over the internet are the so called cleansing shampoos. They only succeed in cleaning the exterior of the hair and leave the inside with trace amounts of illegal drugs as evidence.

In contrast, there are masking agents available to cheat the urine drug tests that are in wide use right now. Just the fact that in most cases the urine samples are collected in privacy enables the subject to provide a falsified or tampered sample for the test. Hair follicle drug testing is better on this front because the person in charge of the test can personally collect a sample and ensure that there will be no tampering of the sample.

Conducting a hair follicle drug test is child’s play with all those do-it-yourself drug test kits available in the market today. All you have to do is order a test over the internet and once the kit arrives, just follow the instructions on it accurately. Hair follicle drug testing works on the principle that when a drug is injected (or otherwise infused) into the blood stream which nourishes the growing hair follicles, a marginal but traceable amount of the drug is left on the hair follicle. Even after the hair follicle grows out, a trace amount of the drug is still left there which could be detected in the laboratory.

A half inch of hair sample could resolve into a 30-day history of drug abuse after being subjected to hair follicle drug testing. If the sample as 1.5 inches long, the rule of thumb dictates that up to 90 days of drug abuse history can be ascertained. People who are contemplating shaving their heads to evade the test could use the fact that body hair could also be used to test for drugs. The result of the tests is not affected by the use of bleaches or shampoos of any kind. It would be comforting to know that second hand smoke of weed is not detected in hair follicle drug testing.

Hair follicle drug testing is precise and sophisticated process, the low point being that it is also a slow process. A proper hair follicle test could take as long as 3 months before the results are returned. This obstinate delay in the availability of the result puts many people off, but the accuracy of the results and the general reliability of the method is an advantage that surely overrides any drawbacks of this process.

The amusing fact is that no matter whether you chose to agree with the credibility of hair follicle drug testing or not, this testing methodology is gaining wide opinion and devout followers. The future would see the elimination of urine drug tests in favor of this test for sure. The odds weigh in favor of the hair follicle drug tests, and for obvious reasons.

This Article is written by Lena Butler, the author of TestCountry Health Information Resources, a longer version of this article is located at Why is hair follicle drug testing better? and resources from other home health and wellness testing articles are used such as TestCountry Drug & Drug Testing FAQ.

With dozens of testing labs in every city, convenience is often a factor in choosing urine tests. Testing centers are usually near to the particular company and the visits are often short. The prospective employee just needs to sign in and sign a few releases and then urinate in a cup. In most cases, the employee is able to partially close the restroom door in order to maintain some privacy. Since many urine tests can detect masking agents, the need to urinate in full company is virtually eliminated. The entire process usually only lasts 20 minutes and employers can have the results within hours.

Although urine drug testing is the most common of pre-employment drug screenings, many creative scientists have developed tools to beat these tests. A vast array of products are easily obtainable online and in specialty shops. Some cases have even been reported of people purchasing urine from a “clean” associate and using the clean urine in their own drug test. The clean urine is stored in a thin plastic bag, boiled, strapped to the leg and passed as urine.

With drug testing laboratories beginning to test for masking agents, synthetic urine was developed. The urine often comes in powder form but may also come in liquid, ready-to-use form. The powder is mixed with water and comes with a container with a thermometer attached. The temperature is guaranteed to stay fresh for up to a few hours. This synthetic urine contains all of the properties in which a lab tests. Certain body temperatures and chemicals that are normally present in human urine are detected and it can be very convincing.

Although urine drug testing is easily accessible, minimally invasive and relatively inexpensive, many employers understand that it is also the easiest to evade. Because of the variety of methods used to cheat on urine tests, many employers decide to utilize sweat, saliva or hair follicle drug testing in its place. These other methods may not be as convenient or inexpensive, but are generally more reliable.

Drug Testing Info provides detailed information about employee, random, high school, hair, and urine drug testing and drug testing kits. Drug Testing Info is the sister site of Prescription Drugs Addiction Web.