MORE PARENTS BUYING HOME DRUG-TEST KITS

MILWAUKEE - Desperate parents dissatisfied with old-school ways of trying
to tell whether their kids are doing drugs - rifling through their
drawers, smelling their breath, searching their eyes - are now instead
demanding proof.

They're dragging their teens to drug-testing labs and buying home-testing
kits by the case over the Internet.

"I tell my daughter if you want to go out tonight you're going to pee in a
cup first," said Suzanne Fugarino, whose 17-year-old daughter
was expelled from high school last fall after bringing a crack pipe to
school.

Schools, too, are getting on board, hanging banners and sending home
brochures backing testmyteen.com, a Web-based company that promotes home
drug tests for children.

Although random drug testing in schools - heavily promoted by the White
House and done in numerous districts in Wisconsin - has drawn some fire
from the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Academy of
Pediatrics, among others, parental testing of teens has gotten far less
attention.

And the practice is quietly exploding.

Internet companies and drug-testing labs report huge upswings in teen
testing and sales of home drug-screening kits.

"(Business) has been awesome," said Debra Auer, co-owner of Express Drug
Screening in Milwaukee.

Sales of home-testing kits and visits to the lab by teen-toting parents
have tripled in the last four years, Auer said.

Drugteststrips.com says its sales have quadrupled in the last five years,
and another local testing lab, Noble Diagnostics, says sales of home kits
have jumped 30 percent in the last nine months or so.

"From a parent's perspective, it's the most empowering thing in the
world," said Kim Hildreth, a Dallas mother who tests her own children and
sells home-testing kits online at drugtestyourteen.com.

"You're lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, worried to death all
the time," Hildreth said. ‘‘You catch them in little fibs.
You don't know if they're where they say they are. You worry. There's no
reason for that."

Hildreth and other proponents call drug testing a powerful deterrent and
say it gives teens a socially acceptable reason to reject drug use.

"We taught them to 'Just Say No,' but we never told them what to say
next," said Mason Duchatschek, owner of testmyteen.com.

Teens who are tested can tell their friends that their parents test them
and that they will lose cell phone, car or other privileges, and their
peers understand that, Duchatschek said.

Duchatschek is working with schools across the country to get them to
endorse his program of parental testing instead of adopting controversial
random testing programs as many other schools have done.

Home drug tests typically cost $6 to $15 for one test that can detect
between five and 10 drugs, such as marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines,
opiates and benzodiazepines. Parents dip the test into a cup of urine and
results appear within minutes.

Matt Muir, a 17-year-old high school senior from Michigan, objects to his
mother's recent purchase of home drug tests. Muir says his occasional
marijuana use causes no problems in his life and that his
mother shouldn't worry. His grades are fine, he said. He's already been
accepted into three good universities and he'll soon be living on his own.
He doesn't smoke every day and never before school, and he's not turning
to other 'harder" drugs, he said.

"I think her fears are overdrawn and exaggerated," he said.

When his mother tried to force him to urinate in a cup while she stood in
the bathroom facing the wall, he decided he would rather admit to his drug
use than go through the embarrassment.

"I've given a lot of thought to what she's supposed to do," Muir said.
"It's really tough. I guess look the other way, but not approve of it. It
strikes me that parents that are OK with it are not good people."

Some groups say home drug testing can harm relationships with children.

The Drug Policy Alliance, a national nonprofit agency that promotes an
overhaul of the nation's approach to drug problems, says parental testing
tears at the bond between children and adults.

"It can have consequences of breaking down communication, of creating
rebellion, breaking down relationships of trust," said Jennifer Kern,
a research associate with the office of legal affairs for the Drug Policy
Alliance.

Drug testing of teens should be done by medical professionals who can
better interpret test results and refer parents to appropriate resources
if necessary, Kern said.

Rachael Fugarino, the teen busted for bringing a crack pipe to school,
said she was angry when her mom started screening her for drugs but that
eventually it was helpful.

"At first I tried to get other people's pee to try to pass the test," she
said. "Then I realized if I opened up and communicated it helped. It
helped to have her know what I was doing."

Rachael Fugarino said drugs, especially crack cocaine, nearly destroyed
her. She said she tried any and every drug and would do anything to get
money for drugs. She stole and forged checks, sold her mom's jewelry
and borrowed money from anybody who would give it to her.

She's been clean for about six months and is working toward her GED.

The home drug tests now serve as a way for Fugarino to prove she's clean
and earn back her mom's trust, she said.

And when her mom and stepfather apologize - as they often do - for the
things they've done and still do to prevent her drug use, "I tell
them, 'You don't need to apologize. I know you're just doing it to help
me,' " Fugarino said. "And I'm glad that they did."