Home HairTest Kit Hits Drug Store Shelves

According to a report in the Boston Business Journal, the drugtesting
laboratory Psychemedics "plans to capitalize on increased teenager drug
use by selling an athome version of its product through retail drugstore
chains such as CVS Corp., Eckard Co. and Walgreen Co." These kits will be
backed by a multimillion dollar media campaign in People, Family Circle,
Better Homes and Gardens, USA Today and other major media outlets and will
be aimed at parents who suspect their kids of drug use.

The kit, called PDT90, will retail for $59.95 and has already appeared on
some store shelves. It will enable parents to collect a hair sample, label
it and mail it to a Psychemedics lab for analysis within five days. It
claims to be able to detect marijuana, cocaine, opiates, methamphetamines
and PCP within 90 days of use by means of gas chromatography/mass
spectrometry the most accurate testing analysis in use today. If the
Psychemedics' claims are true, people will not be able to pass the home
hair tests, nor their corporate equivalent as they enter the drugtest
market, with commercial "instant passthedrugtest" products.

However, hair testing's accuracy has often been called into question since
it was introduced years ago. Labtesting procedures are always capable of
producing a false negative result. The spongelike quality of hair would
make a false positive due to secondhand smoke very likely. And there is
debate as to the effectiveness of special hair dyes or shampoos that can
wash metabolites out of body, head or facial hair. The US Navy considers
hair tests to be raciallybiased people who are of African or Asian
descent have hair that makes it easier for particulates to show up in the
hairtesting procedures. And close sexual contact can cause a false
positive since the perspiration of a drug user can contaminate the hair of
a nonuser.

None of which bothers Psychemedics, which knows a good trend it can
capitalize on when it sees one. "Frequency of drug use is up, along with
the potency of drugs. Basically, kids are getting higher and higher, and
more and more stoned," Raymond Kubacki Jr., president and chief executive
officer for Psychemedics, told Boston Business Journal. "We wanted to
provide a tool that's as readily available to parents as drugs are to
kids," he said. "It provides a powerful, up front deterrent."

Based on the past sales performance of other home drugtest kits, there is
some doubt as to whether parents will use the hair test kits to spy on
their children, despite the current hysteria regarding rising teen drug
use. The home urinalysis kits were not a marketing success (the Journal
report called them "too cumbersome, invasive and inaccurate for athome
use"), nor were the "spongewipe" drug kits that debuted a few years ago.

But the most chilling aspect of this report is that Big Brother continues
to find new and more accurate ways to intrude on privacy. Until the
citizens of the U.S. demand that drugtesting by corporations end, and
start lawsuits when threatened by a drug test, the testing of different
body parts (urine, skin, hair, fingernails, blood, etc.) will continue.

"Scoop" Jones, HT Web News Crew 5/5/97