My Mother the Narc

Do home drug-testing kits help or hurt teens?

By Sarah Childress

Newsweek

April 10, 2006 issue - It took Mike Peterson three years to find out that his 15-year-old son had a drug problem. He'd noticed that the once-charming A and B student with a love of Superman paraphernalia had become angry and withdrawn, and was in danger of flunking out of school. But his son repeatedly denied using drugs. Finally, at home in St. Clair, Mo., Peterson turned to the Internet, where he found a site that sold home drug-testing kits for parents. He told his son he wasn't leaving the house until he turned over a urine sample. Peterson was stunned and hurt when his son tested positive for cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines. "He had a problem—a genuine problem," Peterson says. "Thank God we caught it before he hit rock bottom."

Parents used to rifle through their kid's coat pockets to figure out if he was using drugs. Now they can just hand him a little cup and point to the bathroom door. Home drug-testing has boomed as a cheap, private and, advocates say, foolproof way to monitor teenage behavior. Online sales of the kits, which range from $15 to $25, have exploded in the last decade, with some 200 Web sites aimed at parents. Particularly popular are simple urine tests that show results in minutes. Now the industry's getting even more of a boost. Over the past two years, the Office of National Drug Control Policy has championed the controversial practice of random drug testing in middle and high schools. But for some school officials, the high cost of tests and the threat of legal challenges and protests from outraged parents have led them to pass the cup. In states like Missouri, Wisconsin and Texas, schools are hanging banners, passing out pamphlets and holding information sessions to encourage parents to visit a Web site, buy a kit and drug-test their own teenagers at home.

St. James R-1 School District in meth-ravaged Missouri was the first to try it out this fall. It called on Mason Duchatschek, owner of testmyteen.com to help promote the program to parents. It held an information session at the high school, hoping to attract 100 parents. About 700 showed up. Parents responded so well, officials say, that the district is applying for a $100,000 federal grant to expand the program to eighth graders.

There's already a heated debate over testing in schools, which hasn't been proved conclusively to deter drug use. Not everybody thinks home testing is a good idea, either. Online stores don't always educate parents about how to perform the tests or interpret results accurately, according to a 2004 study from the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research at Children's Hospital in Boston. Other critics say it erodes the trust between parents and children and may create a mind-set of secrecy that discourages parents from seeking professional help.

But kit sellers argue that home tests are just the first step in dealing with drug use. They're most effective in deterring teens who haven't tried drugs, which is why they say no home with a teenager should be without them. "Parents tell me, 'My kid's in the choir!' Well, you know what? Whitney Houston was in the choir," says Duchatschek. So was Peterson's son. Now 16, he's been clean for nine months, but Peterson still doesn't hesitate to wake him at 3 a.m. for a urine test. "It kinda makes me feel like he doesn't trust me sometimes, but I can kinda see where he's coming from," says the younger Peterson. It was, he says, the only way he could come clean.

With Ellen F. Harris