Kit Allows Parents To Secretly Test For Drug Use By Children
A leading drug detection firm announced Tuesday a potent new weapon in the battle of the generations - a $20 kit that allows parents to check their children’s rooms secretly for traces of drugs.
Executives at Barringer Technologies Inc. of New Providence, N.J., said the kit - which can be mailed to parents in a thin envelope and sent back for quick analysis - offers a new way to stymie what has been a recent surge in teenage drug use. Drug experts said they expect other companies to jump into a market fueled by parental fears of drug use when their children are moody or belligerent.
Psychologists and social workers who deal with family problems hailed the device as a way to get help early for troubled youth.
“It usually takes two or three years after a child is using before their behavior becomes so deviant that parents are convinced of their drug use, and by that time they are well into addiction,” said Harold Hunton, a staff therapist at the Family Therapy Institute of Alexandria, Va.
Barringer executives said the test destroys the sample, so that it could not be used as evidence in court.
But civil libertarians and some teenagers and family counselors said the device was liable to poison relations between children and their parents, particularly if no drug traces were discovered.
The firm’s DrugAlert kit contains a three-inch premoistened pad, called a swipe, which collects any drug traces when wiped across desk tops, telephones, books, clothing or other items.
The kit is now available by mail order from Barringer.