Home Drug Tests Given to L.I. Parents

(CBS)  Suffolk County is taking a stand in what could be considered as a war against drugs that's happening on the homefront.

Parents in this community are learning that drug abuse doesn't just happen in bad neighborhoods and to bad kids; it happens everywhere and to anyone --and its abuse can start in their own medicine cabinets.

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In an effort to help parents in the fight against this suburban drug problem, Suffolk County and school officials distributed 350 free home drug test kits Monday night to parents at a meeting at Patchogue-Medford High School.

"We are going to empower the parents," said Suffolk County's Jack Eddington, who proposed the drug test kit program to the school district. "We are going to stem the tide of this epidemic."

The urine drug kits, made by Dallas-based Drug Test Your Teen, can detect presence of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines, opiates, amphetamines and benzodiazepines.

"I'm here as a concerned parent," said Laurie Hummel, 39, of Medford, who took a kit for her teenage daughter. "It's important to trust, but it's also important to question. I'm probably going to use the test when my daughter's not expecting it, maybe after a weekend out with friends, on a Sunday night."

Should their children's drug test results come out positive, the parents were given a list of available community and health resources to contact.

Drugs are unfortunately easy to come by.

WCBS-TV recently reported that "70 percent of the time teens get the potentially deadly pills from a friend or at home," according to Jamie Bogenschutz of the YES Community Counseling Center in Massapequa, who counsels teens about drugs.

"We're losing great kids who just make poor decisions. It is not stopping, it is getting worse," she told WCBS-TV. "Parents need to be aware, be vigilant, they need to, at the very least, go through their medicine cabinets."

Just a few days before the Suffolk County meeting, two 16-year-old girls were arrested at Smithtown High School West.

[hologram5]

by cidaia January 14, 2010 12:07 PM EST:
Reading all your assinine posts here make me want to pray you don't and will NEVER have children. You one sided moron.

[capminder]

Great program. It will without a doubt cause the teens to think twice. Plus if gives teens, who are under such great peer pressure, the tools to help them in a situation by saying "no - my parents will drug test me?. We have to address this epidemic of an issue at the point of attack and fight it house to house with such tools that are focused on the teens as this is the genesis of abuse, which begins with experimentation. In addition to the euphoric effect that makes one so called ?feel good?, the outcome of such experimentation leads to a false sense of empowerment and complacency. Continued experimentation / use leads to dependency / addiction. Teens are the most vulnerable to experimentation and parents need other tools to intervene early before it leads to addiction. One solution for parents is to attach this device www.capminder.com to their prescription meds so that they have a means to detect early on in the process if their teens decide to experiment. Intervening early can make a big difference in curbing curiosity that can turn into addiction quickly.

[jtdev1]

The drug tests aren't really necessary.

If your child is using drugs and you can't tell, then it's YOU that needs help.

It's time for the PARENT to smarten up and remember what it was like being a kid. Some COMMON SENSE is in order here.

Be involved with your child's life, Don't just send them off with their friends or to their room, Talk to them daily, Spend time with them, Do things together. It's not that hard to do and maybe, just maybe you would see they are fun to be around.

[hologram5]

Smartest post I've seen all day. Thanks. Most dolts don't understand that ALL education starts at home. Be an active member of your children's lives and you'll know what's going on.

[KHLady7]

I feel bad for any of the kids that fail the test because of marijuana, which is just as common as alcohol. I don't see those tests detecting alcohol and that's really what your kids are doing on the weekend.
Just talk to your kids about drugs and be honest...it will go a lot further than invading their privacy with a drug test.

[cidaia]

Why would you justify someone disobeying their parents and the law to do marijuana?

Do you really believe that because "everyone does it", that this makes a thing okay? That's called an "argumentum ad populum", and it's the same logic that explains why Germans did nothing to stop the Nazis from murdering people.

"Everyone does it" is used to justify violence against minorities. It is used to justify raping women. It is used to justify why it's okay to steal or rob, to cheat, to destroy. It is used to abuse children.

Children don't have rights to privacy from their parents. They earn that right by paying their own way in society. If they're still mooching off mom and dad - or, more importantly, if they are still living under mom and dad's legal guardianship, so that mom and dad can be held legally liable for their actions - then they're dependents, and their mom and dad are being NEGLIGENT if they do not use those drug tests.

Marijuana is not something children need to be doing, or should be doing.

[hologram5]

@cidaia: MOOCHING off mom and dad? You are a tool shed. You brought the kids into this hellhole of a world, they didn't ask for it. Get a life and get your tubes tied quick, you don't deserve the gift of children. IDIOT!

[dragon8me]

Now they have parents helping ruin the lives of their own kids. They may not know it but they are.

[cidaia]

Any kid who is already doing drugs, ruined his life by his own actions.

[gnimelf1968]

You've got to figure that anyone who is against this either did drugs in school or is doing drugs now.

[BeachBuzz]

The unfortunate truth is I see drug addiction in parents and grandparents as often, if not more than what I see in the youth of today. Just because you are given a prescription from your physician for pain meds for chronic back pain or xanax because you get a little nervous at times or ambien because you don't sleep as well as you use too and you have been receiving these scripts for years doesn't make you any less of a drug addict. You would be amazed how many little old blue haired ladies are driving around completely gorked on xanax and hydrocodone totally legal. Want to keep your kids away from drugs? (A) Get off the drugs yourself or keep them under lock and key and ask your relatives to do the same. (B) Get your children off all the scripts they have been given for ADHD,Depression,etc. (C) Legalize the illicit substances so they may be better regulated and controlled.
Most the suicide attempts I have seen are people that take all of their own prescribed medications. Overdoses on the other hand usually stem from the patient being unaware of the strength of the illicit substance they used.

[cidaia]

Why do you justify kids doing drugs?

How does drug use make a kid's life better?

And if children are old enough to decide for themselves on these issues, we need to change the definition of adulthood so that they're also old enough to get a job, get an apartment, and support themselves.

[squeakof2006]

Many public school students do not do drugs. A student can have just as much power in a public school as anywhere else and are taught to stand up for their beliefs more than they would in a private school, where failure to think as others do is grounds for removal. If parents don't want their kids to do drugs, they need to teach the child that drug abuse is dangerous. Have the kids read about others that have o.d'ed on different things. Encourage kids to only take medications they are prescribed and only as directed. Stop trying to correct only. Be proactive. The lady in this story could accomplish a lot more by talking to her daughter and understanding her daughter's views on drugs than by saying "I trust you. Now go pee in this cut to prove that you're not doing drugs".

[cidaia]

There's no reason why parents should "trust" their kids. Kids screw up.

Part of being a kid is having bad judgment - that is why the age of legal adulthood is 18, not 13. Science has proven what parents always knew: that teenagers have impaired judgment.

Very often kids need to know that if they misbehave, they WILL be caught, and there will be consequences. What is more important, though, is that rights and responsibilities must be in balance. Rights come with obligations, and when we teach children they have "rights" when they really don't, we're not doing them any favors.

[pubsrtoast]

Hopefully, once marijuana is legal,it will put an end to this cottage industry that has taken an imperfect test and turned it into the holy grail for both employers and parents.

[gnimelf1968]

It would be the worst thing that could happen. I know too many people who were in car accidents because they were high. Your just asking for more fatal car accidents.

[cidaia]

Would you let your kids play at a house where the parents don't have a clue what their kids are doing, and half the kids are doing drugs?

Because that's what you do when you send your child into a public school.

You can have all the "power" you want as a parent, but if you send your kids into a public school, you are using that "power" to say, "here - go into that place where you will be taught to behave like an animal, you will be stigmatized if you refuse to go along, and the adults have no control over the situation..." (and can think of nothing to do but make excuses as to why it's not their fault, and justifying their clueless, helpless state).

There ain't no power there.

[Rikgun]

Honestly, do you believe that all public school students are crazed animals? I'm a current student at a public school that has never touched any drugs nor alcohol. Actually, I'm planning on becoming a Pathologist with a PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATION. Sorry I do not fit your stereotype of "all public school students are druggies and animals."

You = Fail.