Why Parents Should Drug Test Their Kids for Safety

Drug test your kids

Just do it. Trust me on this one. You should start doing it before you think you need it, rather than after you discover you have a serious problem on your hands. Drug testing should be done randomly in all schools, but this would never make it past the courts. This is why it is left to the parents. So if you are a responsible parent, you know what you need to do. If you are still not convinced, then keep reading.

We should drug test our kids because they are important. They are precious. They are the future of our families and our country. Look at other major institutions and observe what they do. Professional athletes get drug tested. Pilots get drug tested. Nurses get drug tested. The list goes on. The pattern seen here is that people who are important or do something important get drug tested. This makes perfect sense. You want to protect individuals who are of importance from the perils and liabilities of drug use. We should protect our kids in the same way. We invest so much love, time, energy, and resources in them, yet we do not do everything we should to protect them while they are still vulnerable.

I am using the word "protection" here because of the principle of vulnerability. Certain populations are more vulnerable to the perils of addiction than others. Individuals who are not entirely neurologically and emotionally mature, also known as children and adolescents, are especially vulnerable. The young are curious, bold, and at times reckless. This has to do with how the part of the brain responsible for assessing the severity of consequences, also known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, does not reach full maturity until age 25. This is why judgment improves as you reach your mid-20's. This is also why car insurance rates are higher for anyone younger than 25. This part of the brain is also easily impaired by the use of drugs and alcohol. This is why they give out alcoholic drinks for free in casinos. When you cannot evaluate the potential consequences of a given situation, you are more likely to make a bad decision.

Drug abuse and addiction are not simple decisions. It is a disease that encompasses several complex decisions. I say complex because there are many biases at play here. Our children are faced with decisions influenced by peer pressure, social pressure, and the prospect of experiencing euphoria. It is understandable how someone would pick something that looks so appealing if they cannot fully appreciate how it can hurt them. Add to this how certain predatory individuals, also known as drug dealers or pushers, try to persuade our kids to use these drugs. Their behavior is reinforced by quick profits. The net result is drug use at increasingly younger ages. This problem will only get worse unless it is directly addressed.

The basics of drug abuse prevention include the principles of modeling, education, deterrence, deferring, and detection. If your kids know that you do drugs, trying to convince them not to is an effort in futility. You can figure that one out for yourself. Education involves increasing their fund of knowledge about what drugs do to the brain and body. Knowledge is power here. Deterring, deferring, and detection all come together with drug testing. Ideally, you can be a positive model for your kids and educate them sufficiently to deter drug use. Adding on the accountability and potential consequences of a failed drug test helps to further deter drug abuse. A bank robber who believes he will be caught will usually pass on robbing a given bank. If you cannot fully deter, you can at least try to defer the age of first usage.

Drug use is bad at any age. The younger it starts, the worse it is, though. Starting to experiment at age 18 is less bad than at age 13. For every additional year you can defer drug experimentation, the chances of avoiding the trap of addiction improve significantly. If you can defer it all the way into college or adulthood, they may naturally become interested in career and academics and outgrow the drug experimentation phase altogether. If they do start to abuse drugs, early detection is critical.

Early detection of drug use allows for early intervention. This concept is similar to that seen in cancer screening. Catch the cancer early, and you are more likely to survive. Catch the drug use early, and you can prevent escalation to full addiction. The later you detect an addiction problem, the worse off they are and the harder it will be to treat. If drug use is detected, intervention in some form is indicated. If drug use is detected repeatedly, then serious treatment is indicated.

Drug abuse is a serious problem that is one of the greatest threats facing our children. Teach your kids to take this seriously by taking them seriously. Drug test them because their health matters. Drug test them because you are a responsible parent. Drug test them because you love them. Drug test them because drug testing works.

Dr Rodriguez is the founder and Medical Director of the Delray Center for Healing, as well as the director of the Delray Center adolescent drug testing and addiction prevention program. The Delray Center for Healing is a comprehensive outpatient treatment center that incorporates the most advanced psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacological modalities in the treatment of complex multiple diagnosis cases.