WORRIED PARENTS CAN TEST THEIR TEENS FOR DRUGS

For parents who worry that their child may be abusing drugs, Northeast
Georgia Health System is offering a way to find out the truth.

In mid-July, the hospital introduced the Parental Assurance Drug Screen, a
$40 test that checks urine for traces of cocaine, marijuana, amphetamines,
heroin and a variety of other illegal drugs. It doesn't require a doctor's
order.

Parents can bring the child to Northeast Georgia Medical Center, Quick Care
or one of the system's Neighborhood Healthcare Centers for the test, or
they can collect a urine specimen at home. Confidential results are
available in one to two days.

The test is identical to one that will be administered to student athletes
at Hall County School System's six high schools, starting this year. The
system has contracted with the medical center's Forensics Toxicology Lab to
do the testing.

"The idea (for a home-based test) kind of grew out of the town-hall
meetings about student athlete screenings," said Jo Brewer, administrator
of laboratory services for the medical center. "Some parents said they
would like to have this available as a deterrent (to kids using drugs)."

The difference is that students who sign up to participate in sports know
they might be tested and agree to it.

In a family situation, a child suspected of using drugs may be unwilling to
comply with a parent's demands. But Brewer said it is not an invasion of
privacy as long as the child is under 18.

"If a child was brought here and refused to cooperate, we would not do the
test," Brewer said. "You can't force someone to provide a urine specimen
against their will. It's between the parent and the teen whether they go
through this process."

Brewer thinks the screening could actually strengthen the parent-child
relationship.

"I've got a 14-year-old, and I'd certainly want to bring him in to get a
specimen if he began behaving oddly," she said. "It shows that I care
enough about him to keep him on the straight and narrow path."

Some drugstores sell over-the-counter test kits that claim to screen for
drug use. But Martin Porvaznik, director of the Forensic Toxicology Lab,
said those tests are often unreliable.

"They have a lot of false positives and false negatives. With ours, the
results are confirmed," he said. "We can also tell parents how long ago a
child may have ingested a particular drug, because some substances stay in
the body longer than others."

In the early 1980s, Porvaznik helped set up a forensic drug screening
program for the U.S. Navy, which was later adopted by the Army and Air
Force. Northeast Georgia Medical Center recruited him five years ago to
establish their Forensics Toxicology Lab.

Prior to that, results of drug tests done at the hospital were not
admissible as evidence in court, because there were no security safeguards
in place.

Now, there is a "chain of custody" for each urine or blood specimen, so
that it is accounted for at every step of the process and can't be tampered
with.

In addition to the student screenings, the toxicology lab contracts with
many area companies to test current or potential employees for drug use.

The lab also works with the Georgia Division of Family and Children
Services on parental competency cases. For example, sometimes a judge will
order a mother to be tested for drug use, to determine whether a child
needs to be removed from a home.

Porvaznik said he often gets called to testify in court. But the goal of
the Parental Assurance Drug Screen is to detect a teen's drug use early,
before he or she gets in trouble with the law or becomes seriously addicted.

Brewer said she's compiling a list of referral sources so that if a child's
drug test comes back positive, she can tell parents what their options are
for treatment.