Some say it’s an invasion of privacy for parents to test their child for drugs using samples of their hair, but I believe what they don’t know can only help them not hurt them. I’ve had a few friends and even my own mother to tell me that they don’t have a problem with snooping around in a child’s room searching for whatever they can find that doesn’t belong. So really what’s the difference between that and taking strands from their hair combs or brushes to get the truth and the whole truth on weather or not they’re using drugs? That is, if you really wanna know.
Many students are back in school, meaning the peer pressure to experiment with drugs and alcohol is on. A local group is praising a tool that helps you identify what your child is getting into and you can do it from home. KSBI-TV’s Kealey McIntire has more.
With the start of school often comes the start of peer pressure. And now, a product in a small box tells you if your child has succumbed to that pressure. “If they’re using, they’re going to be very good at hiding it from us and so this just gives us something where we definitely know what we’re dealing with,” says Linda Stokes, mother of five and Director of Services for a local chapter of Parents Helping Parents. Parents Helping Parents is a group for parents whose children cope with substance abuse issues.
Three of Stokes’ five children have struggled with addiction. She says the hair test is the best way to know what’s really going on. “If they could do a urine analysis, the kids can access products on line that can actually dilute the results and make them really difficult to nail down what’s been going on,” explains Stokes.
The test is called Hair Confirm. You take about 80 strands of hair and send it to the Confirm Biosciences Lab in California.
They can tell you if your child has used things like marijuana, cocaine, hallucinogens and prescription drugs within 48 hours of receipt. The hair test technology has been available for years, but it’s now available to consumers via the Internet. “It was just really to answer a demand in the market.
It’s a helpful tool to a lot of people to get some of their questions answered and we’ve seen a lot of people’s lives changed for the better after they use the test,” says Zeynep Ilgaz, with Confirm Biosciences.
You can use Hair Confirm in your own home. Ilgaz says because it tests the past 90 days, you can tell if your child is a heavy user or recreational user. The product is available at www.cvs.com and www.amazon.com
“If you can get ahead of the ball and deal with the problem while it’s small, you’re going to come out way ahead, it’s going to be much better spent money,” says Stokes.
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