You Can Help Your Kids Stay Off Drugs
(PRWEB) October 19, 2004
Spend five minutes and .00 or less to find out if your teenager is using drugs, alcohol, or tobacco. It really is that simple. You Can Help Your Kids Stay Off Drugs.
If you are the parent of a teenager, you probably worry a lot, and for good reason. According to a government-sponsored study, in 2003, 38.4% of teens surveyed admitted to using illegal drugs, 62.7% to drinking alcohol, and 41.7% to smoking cigarettes.* Parents must deal with this difficult possibility.
Drug Test Your Teen has found a way for parents to take loving control. Drug test your teen in the privacy of your home. They offer inexpensive, accurate, FDA-cleared drug, alcohol, and tobacco tests that are quick and easy to use.
Drugtestyourteen.com is owned and run by the Hildreth family, mom Kim and her two teenaged daughters, Linzy and Delaney.
Kim Hildreth was Director of Marketing & Client Relations for a lab in Dallas for nearly 20 years. In the 90’s, before Linzy and Delaney were teenagers, she sold the same types of tests sold on their site, then only available to businesses, not for home use. “I was always having a nurse or office person ask for Âsamples’ because of a problem teenager,” she says. “It drove me crazy back then that I couldn’t offer them to parents. It seemed so logical. We had a huge problem back then with high school heroin deaths, and the parents around here were crazy with worry. After I left the lab, I still had a box of the tests that I started using when Linzy was about 14. Since then testing has been a regular, accepted deal at our house.”
Linzy Hildreth, 18, is President of drugtestyourteen.com. This web site was her idea. At 17, she was devastated when her best friend started using drugs heavily and spending time with a wild crowd. Their friendship ended. Meanwhile, she had seen drug abuse hurt other friends and acquaintances, and even knew kids who died as a direct result of drug and alcohol abuse. She wanted to offer parents the same drug tests that had helped her stay off drugs. Her mother loved the idea, and this web site was created.
Delaney Hildreth, 16, brings an important perspective to this trio. She started using cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs at 12. Her mom had already started testing Linzy, but didn’t think she needed to test young Delaney. “It took me months to catch on,” says Kim. “I just never dreamed. I thought she was too young and innocent.” But Kim did catch on and started testing Delaney as well. “Testing early for Âgateway drugs’ is a great deterrent for young teens,” says Delaney. “As a kid, I can tell you absolutely that the kids who smoke cigarettes lead you to the kids that drink, and the kids that drink lead you to the kids who do drugs.” Delaney stopped using drugs at 14. “I will never use drugs again,” she says.
The three Hildreths are passionate about their message. They hope their site will give parents the tools they need to keep their kids away from cigarettes, alcohol, and drugs, because they know first-hand how dangerous those substances can be.
Most would agree that no topic is more frightening to parents than teen drug abuse. Each year thousands of lives are lost or ruined by this nationwide epidemic. Linzy contends that when teens and pre-teens use drugs, they will usually deny it to their parents. On the other hand, the same parents who say they want to know everything going on in their kid’s lives often avoid such subjects as teen sexual behavior, underage drinking and drug abuse- hoping these issues will simply ‘ go away’. The fact is- they don’t- and putting on blinders to the problem never resolves it. Now that the technology is available for parents to get honest answers, she believes they should not be afraid to take advantage of it. Teens may object to being tested, saying that their parents don’t “trust” them. This is understandable, but a teen that has overcome the peer pressure to use drugs should be proud and anxious to prove it to their parents. Executives, professional athletes, truck drivers, and policemen have to prove that they are drug-free. Why not teenagers? Fearing drugs and their effects on her friends inspired her to approach her laboratory professional mom with the idea of offering easily used and inexpensive drug, alcohol, and tobacco tests to parents of teens.
Linzy and Delaney are convinced that these tests give kids another reason to ‘say no’, one that their peers will understand. These tests are extremely accurate, FDA approved, and parents can see the results in just minutes. They are easily performed at home using a small amount of saliva or urine. With their home tests, there is no more wondering if your teens are drinking and driving. If a parent suspects alcohol use, they can know in just minutes by swabbing the inside of the mouth. The street drug test screens for THC (marijuana, pot, hash), Cocaine (coke, crack), Opiates (heroin, oxycontin, morphine, opium), Amphetamines (speed, uppers), Methamphetamines/mdma (ice, ecstasy, crank, crystal), and Benzodiazepines ( t-bars, valium, librium, xanax)- all of the common drugs of abuse today. Tests for nicotine are also available, so that you can know for sure that your kids arenÂt smoking cigarettes. Cigarettes and alcohol really are gateway drugs.
When parents have drug tests in their home, it also opens the lines of communication, and helps parents and kids to start talking freely about the problem. Linzy and Delaney hope that everyone will make their household policy “NO DRUGS” and let their kids prove it. She believes testing is a better way than smelling their kids breath, checking their eyes, looking through their clothes, or listening in on their phone conversations. Parents won’t have to sneakily invade their teen’s privacy, because everything about drug testing puts the subject out in the open.
Their company is called Drug Test Your Teen. Visit them on the web at www.drugtestyourteen.com, or call 214-797-TEST.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Monitoring the Future Study
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