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Home Drug Testing Kits: Should You Try Them?

You’re starting to get concerned. Your adolescent son or daughter has been behaving strangely lately – and not in the way that could be explained by normal development during teenage years. They’ve made new friends with bad reputations; they won’t tell you where they go or what they do. They sleep in and wake up with red eyes. Their clothing smells odd. Money has started disappearing from your wallet or purse. You suspect that they’ve begun to abuse alcohol or drugs, but any time you bring up the topic, they get defensive and avoid answering you. Should you purchase a kit to test for drugs at home so you can know what you’re dealing with and have proof?

What types of home drug testing kits are available?
Drug testing products for at-home use are designed to screen for single substances or multiple substances, depending on the product. Many at-home drug tests require a urine sample from the teen or person being tested, but some - like alcohol tests - use saliva to detect the presence of the substance. Another test uses hair samples. The tests can be purchased online and, in some cases, at your local pharmacy or other major retailers. Numerous products are offered to detect the presence of one or more of the following substances:

• Methamphetamines
• Amphetamines
• Cocaine
• Buprenorphine
• Marijuana (THC)
• Methadone, Oxycodone, and other opiates
• Barbituates
• Alcohol
• Nicotine
• Benzodiazepines
• PCP
• Ecstasy (MDMA)

What are the advantages of home drug testing?
Some of the retailers and manufacturers of drug testing products promote them as a way to help parents and teens have an “out.” If a peer offers the teen a substance, the teen can use the excuse of being “regularly drug tested” by their parents as a way to avoid peer pressure. In addition to providing results more quickly than by mail, home drug testing kits are relatively affordable (assuming they are not used too frequently) and are confidential.

What are the disadvantages of home drug testing?
Many medical professionals worry about the accuracy of these tests and warn that testing can damage the trust in the parent-teen relationship, which is already naturally volatile during the adolescent years. Additionally, a number of allowed substances – like cold medicines, mouthwash, and poppy seeds – may trigger a false-positive result and lead a parent to falsely accuse a teen of substance abuse. Because many drugs (but not all) are metabolized quickly, anything other than extremely frequent testing, which would be costly, may not catch all substances immediately. Finally, attempting to address abuse and addiction without the help of professionals may lead to devastating results. An August 2008 article in The U.S. News and World Report told the story of parents who were misled by their regular at-home drug testing into thinking that their son was slowly stopping marijuana use; in reality, he had just switched to other substances that their test couldn’t detect. His addiction worsened over the course of time. Ultimately, their son died of a heart attack and drowning after huffing an inhalant.

Despite these and other warnings from the medical community, the at-home drug testing industry has grown steadily over the past decade.