More and more schools are requiring students, particularly student-athletes, to submit to urine tests for illegal drugs. The practice has increased dramatically since the U.S. Supreme Court in a 2002 ruling declared that schools could require the tests for any students who participate in sports or other extracurricular activities, such as band or chess club. The practice continues to be popular with many school administrators and parents despite the fact that the students being tested are those least likely to actually have a drug problem, while uninvolved loners, who are more likely to have a drug problem aren’t subject to testing.

The schools aren’t the only ones testing kids’ urine for traces of illicit drug use, so are an increasing number of parents. Parents can purchase drug screening kits and conduct their own urine surveillance at home. How many are actually doing so is unclear but the numbers have been large enough to support a continuing market for the kits.

But the American Academy of Pediatrics, updating its decade old policy statement on the issue, reaffirmed that the Academy “continues to believe that adolescents should not be drug tested without their knowledge and consent.” In a new addendum to their policy statement, they warn that screening for illicit drugs is a complicated process prone to errors and cheating, has not been shown to have any value in curtailing teenagers' drug use, and creates a counterproductive climate of "resentment, distrust and suspicion" between children and their parents or school administrators.

False-positive results are an inevitable problem with all screening tests. In drug screening there is the further problem that positive results can arise from eating a poppy seed bagel or taking common cold medications. Furthermore, to be really useful any positive test results need to be confirmed with expensive further testing. Many students, and especially those who are frequent drug users, are aware, thanks to websites and other sources, of methods to defeat drug testing.

In addition, several illegal drugs are undetectable in urine more than 72 hours after use. Standard urine tests do not detect “ecstasy” or inhalants, both of which are widely used by teens. Nor do they detect alcohol – the cause of the largest number of drug problems among teenagers. While it is true that some teenagers may respond to the threat of drug screening by avoiding readily detected drugs such as marijuana, they are likely to instead take less detectable, but more dangerous, drugs, such as cocaine, opiates, or alcohol, the Academy suggests.

The statement recommended that parents who suspect that their child is abusing drugs or alcohol should consult the child's primary care doctor physician than rely on school-based drug screening or home kits to check their concerns. This writer would suggest that parents who maintain open and involved relationships with their children don’t need a drug test or a physician’s advice to tell if their kids have a problem, with drugs or otherwise, and are far less likely to have kids whose experimentation with drugs leads to any serious problems.

Source: