Private MD News

Column: Parents may want to test kids for drugs

Category: Drug Screening

In what some may call a controversial position, a Michigan community leader is suggesting that some parents may want to consider testing their children for drug use through a urine test.

Maryanne Swanson, a member of the Michigan Livingston County Community Alliance, wrote in the LivingstonDaily.com that she challenges parents to "become more aware, to do whatever it takes to keep their teens from using drugs and alcohol" during Parent Awareness Month.

Swanson also wrote that some parents may want to take "the next step" and test their child for drugs through a "a routine urine test at the doctor's office during a physical or when they take them in for a sick child visit, or getting a sample of hair and sending it in to a drug hair testing lab."

The mother was prompted to write the column after attending an Alliance meeting and hearing a father tell his story of discovering his son was using drugs.

"The sad fact is that drugs and alcohol are killing our kids…and yet we are not outraged and we are not mobilized as a community in a fight to save our kids," Swanson wrote.