GROUP TO PROVIDE PARENTS WITH FREE DRUG-TESTING KITS

VISTA -- A nonprofit group wants to make drug testing cheaper for treatment
programs and parents who suspect their kids are using illegal drugs.

North County Solutions for Change, long associated with operating homeless
shelters, plans to provide free home drug-testing kits to parents and
drug-treatment programs beginning next month.

The group will use some of the kits to test residents at a homeless shelter
it operates here, but the rest will be donated to North County parents,
social service agencies and possibly schools, executive director Chris
Megison said.

Details on how the program will work are being developed. The test kits are
expected to become available Feb. 11.

The kits, which are also available over the counter in drug stores for
about $30 each, test urine samples for six drugs, including cocaine,
marijuana, methamphetamine and ecstasy.

Phamatech, a San Diego firm that develops medical diagnostic devices,
donated about 14,000 kits to the group.

Megison said that if teen-agers know that their parents have the kits, they
may be less likely to try drugs.

"It's as much . . . a deterrent as anything," he said. "The reality is that
in today's society kids get tempted to try things."

In a U.S. Department of Justice report, 36.5 percent of high school seniors
said they had used marijuana within the last year and 48.8 percent said
they had used marijuana or hashish at least once. Between 1992 and 2000,
use of marijuana among high school seniors nationwide rose from 12 percent
to 22 percent, the study said.

Whether the kits will be used by schools to test students was unclear. A
spokeswoman for Oceanside Unified, which already requires student athletes
to be tested for drugs, said the district probably would not ask for the
free kits because it already contracts with a company to perform the tests.

Megison said requests for the kits from schools would be reviewed on a
case-by-case basis.

While the kits do not specify which chemical agents are present in the
urine, a positive test indicates that further testing is needed, said
Phamatech vice president Carl Mongiovi.

When a test comes up positive, a second urine sample can be collected and
sent to a laboratory for a more detailed analysis. Those tests can pinpoint
the type and amount of drugs in the urine and decrease the possibility of
false-positive tests, Mongiovi said.

For information about the program, call North County Solutions for Change
at (760) 941-6545.