AT-HOME DRUG TESTS SHOW AN UPWARD TREND IN SALES

Nearly half of today's teens have used drugs. And a small but growing
number of parents are trying at-home drug tests to figure out if their
child might be in the wrong half.

Since the home-testing kits were introduced four years ago, sales to
parents have grown to about $10 million to $12 million a year, according to
industry estimates. While the numbers are still small, there is a sharp
upward trend. In the first quarter, sales of the top-selling At Home brand
rose 60% from a year earlier.

The tests have been available since 1999, but awareness of them has grown
since the Supreme Court last year cleared the way for schools to test
children in certain activities. Closely held Phamatech Inc., maker of the
At Home brand, estimates that currently only about 5% of consumers know
about the tests, but "certainly awareness is going to grow," says Phamatech
spokesman Carl Mongiovi.

To that end, Phamatech is sending information about its products to more
than 5,000 U.S. antidrug groups. The company has also hooked up as a
sponsor with the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, which
sends info about the company to its members, who work within a special
judiciary system that emphasizes rehab for some drug offenders, aiming to
keep them out of jail.

Phamatech, based in San Diego, is hoping that the drug court workers will
recommend the at-home tests to people who come through the drug court system.

The kits, which range from $15 to $30 for a one-test package, screen urine
for the presence of marijuana, cocaine , opiates and other drugs. Parents
dip a paper strip into the urine sample or apply drops of urine to the
test, and wait for it to change color, much like a home pregnancy test.

One mother in Irvine, Calif., said the drug test was a lifesaver. When she
grew concerned about her 16-year-old daughter, who had used drugs in the
past, she bought a $30 drug test and administered it in the daughter's
bathroom. The results indicated speed, so she fired her daughter's
therapist and got her treatment with a substance-abuse counselor.

"If we didn't drug-test her, if we had just went on our merry way, she
could have been dead now," says the mother, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.

Illicit drug use among teenagers has actually fallen slightly in recent
years, according to a study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
In 2002, 44.6% of tenth graders said they had used drugs in their lifetime,
down from 45.6% in 2001. The study, conducted by the University of
Michigan, found that 20.8% of tenth-graders said they had used drugs in the
past 30 days, down from 22.7% in 2001.

Among the nation's top drug-abuse experts, the jury is still out on at-home
tests. More important than testing, they say, is communication within the
family. "You want to start talking to your kids well before the point where
you think there's even a possibility where you're going to be checking if
they've already used drugs," says Howard Simon, spokesman for the
Partnership for a Drug-Free America (sponsors of the famed "This is your
brain on drugs" ads).

Other antidrug advocates say that parents should make use of all available
tools. "Drug testing is a useful deterrent with proven results in the
military and workplace," says Katherine Ford, a spokeswoman for the Drug
Free America Foundation Inc., a nonprofit educational organization and
information clearinghouse in St. Petersburg, Fla. "It's reasonable that we
would want to use that same resource to keep our kids off drugs."

Stopping at Walgreens and buying a test is a lot easier than administering
it, regardless of how simple it might be to use. Just asking for a test
implies mistrust by a parent. Resentful teens often balk at cooperating or
cunningly find ways to thwart the accuracy of the test. There are a variety
of drinks and urine additives children can buy that claim to break down or
mask evidence of drug use. And simply drinking large amounts of water
before the test will dilute the urine and make it harder to detect drugs. A
negative result, then, is no guarantee of a drug-free child.

Certain legal substances, such as codeine and ephedrine, can cause a
false-positive result.

Children can also refrain from using drugs if they know a test is coming,
although marijuana use can be detected for up to three or even four weeks,
manufacturers say. Cocaine is detectable only up to three days after use.

Francisco Rojas, chief scientist at Worldwide Medical Corp., a Lake Forest,
Calif., manufacturer of at-home drug tests, says that kits are reliable
only when parents establish a chain of custody of the urine sample, and
recommends that parents "observe the collection of the sample."

The Food and Drug Administration requires test makers to furnish a free
confirmation test to be performed in a lab. And manufacturers must provide
a hotline for customers to call with questions. Phamatech says it gets
about 800 such calls a week from parents, and refers some callers to
drug-treatment centers.

Phamatech contends that just the idea of the test looming can help steer
children away from trying drugs. Some of its recent newspaper ads boast:
"99% accurate, 100% confidential, and it often works without even opening
the box."