You Could Be Supplying Your Teen with Prescription Drugs

Do you know what is in your medicine cabinet?   Do you have prescription drugs left over from dental surgery or the time you threw out your back – just in case it happens again?  Do you know how many of those pills you have in the bottle?  Chances are if you live with a teen, they know exactly what you have in your cabinet and that you won’t notice a pill gone here and there – a pill that is worth $20-$40 and makes them the life of the party.

Two-thirds of teens who report abuse of prescription medicine are getting them from friends, family and acquaintances. Make sure the teens in your life don’t have access to your medicine. ANY LAB TEST NOW has joined forces with the Partnership at Drugfree.org’s Medicine Abuse Project to help educate our communities about this growing problem.

WHAT IS IT?

This initiative will kick-off a multi-year program designed to educate the public about the dangers of prescription drug abuse.

• Every day, more than 2,000 kids use prescription drugs to get high for the first time

• Prescription medicines are now the most commonly abused drugs by 12-13 year olds

• Unintentional drug poisoning is now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States.

WHAT CAN I DO?

STEP 1: MONITOR

Parents are in an influential position to immediately help reduce teen access to prescription medicine because medicine is commonly found in the home. But how aware are you of the quantities that are currently in your home? Start by taking note of how many pills are in each of your prescription bottles or pill packets.

Make sure your friends and relatives — especially grandparents — are also aware of the risks. Encourage them to regularly monitor their own medicines.

Give your child another reason to say no to peer pressure and ensure they are safe by regularly testing your teens for drugs with ANY LAB TEST NOW’s Trust but, Verify Program. To find a local ANY LAB TEST NOW in your area, go to www.anylabtestnow.com/locations/.

 STEP 2: SECURE

Take prescription medicine out of the medicine cabinet and secure them in a place only you know about.

If possible, keep all medicines, both prescription and over-the-counter, in a safe place, such as a locked cabinet your teen cannot access.

 STEP 3: DISPOSE

Take an inventory of all of the medicine in your home. Start by discarding expired or unused Rx  and OTC medicine when your teens are not home.

Unbelievable as it may seem, teenagers will retrieve discarded prescription medicine from the trash. Find a medicine take-back location near you to ensure they are safely discarded.

Visit www.anylabtestnow.com/medicineabuseproject/ for more information.

How Many Times Have You Wondered What Your Teen Is Up To When Hanging Out With Friends?

Remember the teenage years, when one minute you felt like you were on top of the world and the next a fight with a friend or bad grade felt like the end of the world? Remember when during those years, reputation amongst friends was the most important thing in the universe? Many of us fail to remember that during the teenage years Peer Pressure becomes the main reason why teens sometimes don’t follow their values and common sense.

Kids want to fit in and feel liked by their friends and classmates. Therefore they feel that by doing drugs or drinking alcohol they will receive the approval they are looking for. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association, teens are considerably vulnerable to a roller coaster of emotions due to fundamental changes that take place between ages of 12-25. That is why as children grow, keeping them safe can turn into a complex process where the parent often debates the level of privacy a teen should have. Many parents violate their teen’s privacy and ‘snoop’ around in the child’s absence, then get outraged by what they have found and tend to overreact; others believe it’s a phase they have to go through in order to grow up.

The important thing is to think before deciding to go through the teen’s belongings and private territory. If the teen feels like their parents violated their privacy, communication and trust can be lost. Talking to your teen about the many repercussions of drug and alcohol abuse while letting them know that you care is key to helping your children survive Peer Pressure.

This leaves us with the question, as a parent what should I do to help my teen? Here are a few tips to protect your teen from the endless hazards of Peer Pressure:

1. Get informed about the different methods in which you can prevent, intervene and possibly get the help your teen needs; organizations like Drugfree.org provide great information for parents.
2. Listen to your teen’s concerns and maintain an open line of communication. Talk to your teen; let them know that you understand the tremendous amount of temptations out there. That you know they are strong and smart, which is why you expect them to stay drug free regardless of what their friends say.
3. Consider having random drug tests; help them understand that with our Trust But Verify Program you are helping them confront day-to-day Peer Pressure.

Help your teen without violating their privacy and Trust, But Verify to maintain an open and forthcoming relationship.

Drug Free Work Week

By Laura Bradbury

Toxicology Manager

This week we are participating in National Drug Free Work Week here at ANY LAB TEST NOW^®. Waaaaaaiittt, before you stop reading- stay tuned for some information that might surprise you about drug testing. Even if you are not an employer, this can affect you as an employee. So buckle your seat belt and read to the end.

Drug testing is expensive, right? I mean in this economy we are all tightening our belts. We have to make sure every penny that we are spending has a positive return on investment. It takes money to make money, but a penny saved is a penny earned.

So let’s break down a few myths that you may have heard.

The first myth is: I will lose all of my employees if I drug test.

At ANY LAB TEST NOW, we work with the most highly accredited and reliable toxicology labs in the country. They’ve done a lot of research about drug use. In a year of testing tens of thousands of employees, our data shows that less than one in ten employees test positive for drugs. For companies that have a rigorous random drug testing policy in place, the percentage of positive tests drops dramatically to one in twenty or even as low as one in fifty. Did you know that 44% of callers to the cocaine hotline admitted that they have sold drugs at work? Do you really want to employ folks who may be bringing drugs to your place of business?

The second myth is: Drug testing takes a lot of time and it’s a lot of paperwork.

One of the options that ANY LAB TEST NOW is happy to offer is on site testing. We will come to your location to do the collections. That means we can have an employee off line for less than 10 minutes. This is just one of the convenient services your personal drug testing specialists will be able to offer you. We can also help you create a drug testing policy as well as help you qualify for worker’s compensation insurance discounts where applicable. It’s all part of the total package solution that we provide.

The third one is: Drug testing is expensive, I can’t afford it.

Drug testing does come with a fee; however the financial benefits by far outweigh what you will spend in drug testing costs. Have you noticed that health care costs are rising? If you are a small, medium or a large sized business, you may have had to reduce the healthcare benefits you are offering to your employees. The fact is ONE drug or alcohol abuser can cost an employer over $6000 per year! If you have 20 employees, you may spend less than $1000 to drug test all of them. Having a drug free workforce gives you a positive return on your investment in testing.

Secondly, drug and alcohol abusers may not always be under the influence at work, but they most definitely suffer the consequences of drug use in their performance. In a study of admitted cocaine abusers, 67% of them admitted that they under performed on the job. So what does that really mean? That means YOU are paying a drug abuser 100% salary to do two thirds of a job! Think of how much money you could save to fire the underperformer and hire someone able to give 100%.

Last but not least, we are here to help. If you need employee education materials to raise awareness of the impact drug and alcohol abuse, supervisor training or a substance abuse professional, your personal drug testing specialist from ANY LAB TEST NOW will guide you every step of the way. All though this week we are promoting National Drug Free Work Week, every week should be at your place of business.

Congratulations! You’re almost to the end where you get to find out some good news. We are going to give you something for FREE! Would you like to find out how much money you can save by implementing a drug free work place? Contact your personal drug testing specialist at ANY LAB TEST NOW and ask for a consultation. Not only is it free, it may save you money.

Think Fast – How Many Pills in Your Medicine Bottle? What You Need to Know About Teen Drug Use

How many Vicodin or oxycodone pills do you have left in your prescription bottle from the last time you had a need for short-term pain relief?  Ah, don’t remember, do you?  Most of us wouldn’t – doctors give us a prescription for 10 or 30 pills, we take them as needed until the pain becomes bearable then we save them “just in case” we ever need them again.

Did you know the fastest growing trend in teen drug abuse is prescription medications?  Yep, those young ‘uns are smart cookies.  They know where you keep your meds, and they know you won’t miss 1 or 2 or 5 pills with a street value between $20 – $40 each.  It’s party money to them, and unknown to you.

So, what should a parent do?  Here are a few tips to protect your family from prescription drug abuse and the peer pressure teens sometimes face with their friends:

1. Many communities host periodic prescription drug “take back” programs.  This means you take your unused or expired prescription medications to a designated drop-off location, and they’ll take it from there.  Ask your local pharmacist about an upcoming event.
2. Consider a safe for your medications, such as Rx Drug Safe, or build a locked cabinet specifically for this purpose.
3. As you’ve heard many times before, “keep all medications out of reach of children,” meaning no low drawers or cabinets where little ones can easily reach.
4. Consider random drug testing, following our Trust But Verify Program.
5. Ask your physician to only prescribe enough pills to get you over the hurdle in managing your pain.  Move to another over-the-counter pain reliever when you are able.

Parenting is hard, and today’s social environment doesn’t make it any easier.  Help your teen and protect your meds.

Required Drug Testing for TANF-TCA Applicants Comes to Florida

You may have seen online and on the news the controversy surrounding recent efforts by state governments to require that welfare applicants be drug tested before they are approved to receive benefits.  While many people support this move, after all most of us are paying state taxes which pay for welfare, a surprising number oppose it.  Some welfare recipients have even been quoted as saying that they think it’s a good idea.  Paying for drug testing for the large number of new applicants will cost state governments significant amounts of money.  In Florida, which passed their new drug testing requirement to be effective on July 1, 2011, the estimated cost for the program is expected to be in the millions of dollars at a time of severe budget cuts.  It is likely the bill will be challenged not only because it will be expensive to implement but it has already been ruled unconstitutional in other states, such as Michigan, where the law lasted only 5 weeks.

New applicants for Florida’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families – Temporary Cash Assistance (TANF-TCA) must pay out of their own pocket for a drug test and will be reimbursed only if they pass the test.  During the application process, applicants are provided with a website listing testing locations (http://www.dcf.state.fl.us/programs/access/drugtestsites.shtml) from which they can select “List of Drug Testing Providers” to find locations by county.  The prices of the tests are included in the listing so that applicants know what to expect when they arrive.    Because applicants also know that they will only be reimbursed and receive money after passing the test it could have the effect of self-elimination from the application process.  It would make sense that only applicants who are not using drugs will even apply for benefits.

Applying for unemployment, welfare and food stamps can be stressful and those who have struggled and recently had to try to get financial support may feel demoralized.  Adding a drug test will not help those already dealing with a lack of self-confidence.  The additional step of drug testing, beyond the emotional aspects of the testing, can only be seen by applicants as a delay in receiving benefits and a judgment on those who apply.  The ANY LAB TEST NOW® locations listed on the state website can provide discreet, professional testing that won’t add an additional layer of emotional stress to the already difficult situation of applying for state benefits.    The ability to obtain drug testing quickly, without long lines, at these locations will help to speed the process and it is a boon that the state of Florida is reaching out to private providers of the tests and hasn’t tried to take on this task itself.  One of the benefits of working with ANY LAB TEST NOW® locations is that the Medical Assistants are familiar with the TCA Drug Testing Information Acknowledgement and Consent Release form required by the state and will ensure that applicants get the correct test.

Whether or not the bill, signed by Governor Rick Scott on May 31, remains in place is still to be seen, but Florida seems to be handling the implementation well.  Time will tell whether the drug testing requirement will really save the state welfare dollars as Gov. Scott has proclaimed.  The inconvenience of adding another step to the process may deter people who are in great need from applying and therefore, some children who are relying on their parents to provide for them, whether working or not.  Hopefully those applying will follow through and give the process time to work the kinks out.  Using private drug testing facilities, such as ANY LAB TEST NOW®, allows applicants more flexibility in scheduling and professionalism to meet their needs and get them on track to receiving much needed benefits, and ultimately back on their feet.

Is Your Home Safe For Your Children?

If you are a parent of young children you probably cheered on your little one when he first stood up on his own and took that first step.  Your baby, now officially a toddler, is on the way to many adventures.  Let’s hope that one of them isn’t exploring your medicine cabinet, your household cleaning supplies, or peeking under the bathroom rug to find that pill you dropped and forgot about.  Most parents are likely to have installed cabinet locks of some sort to try to prevent their children from getting to medications or cleaning fluids, but accidents happen.  According to PoisonPrevention.org, over 2 million poisonings are reported across the country, the majority of them to children under the age of six.  Just having cabinet locks, child proof tops on your prescription and aspirin bottles, and moving poisonous substances to a higher shelf isn’t always enough.  Children at this age are inquisitive and will try to get to something that looks or smells interesting.

PoisonPrevention.org has named the third week in March every year Poison Prevention Week to bring awareness to poisonings in the home.  One of the mottos of their campaign is “Children Act Fast…So Do Poisons!”  Although most poisoning victims are children, adults can be poisoned, too.  Not reading the label and looking at your medication every time, taking your medication in the dark or mixing medications with alcohol can be deadly.

If you suspect that you or your child has taken the wrong medication, too much of it, or in the child’s case ingested anything that they weren’t supposed to, the first step is to call the National Poison Hotline at 1-800-222-1222.  This new national toll-free number is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and will connect you with one of the 64 regional poison control centers that are prepared to answer questions on actions to be taken if a poison has been ingested.  Not all chemicals or medications are poisonous or will cause an immediate reaction but these centers can tell you what is poisonous and what to do.

Some chemicals, medications, or minerals take a long time to cause a reaction or a problem.  One of the most well-known of these is lead.  Children are frequently exposed to lead without a parent realizing it.  Many parents know that lead paint is dangerous and exposure can cause serious problems for children, but lead may also be present in the paint on antique toys, toys made overseas or in old, painted metal play equipment.  Over time, exposure to lead can interfere with development of the nervous system, causing potentially permanent learning and behavior disorders in children.  Symptoms may include abdominal pain, confusion, headache, and anemia and in severe cases seizures, coma and death.  There is no safe level of lead exposure!  Blood tests, such as those offered by ANY LAB TEST NOW® can determine if you or your child has been exposed to heavy metals, including lead.  Contact your nearest ANY LAB TEST NOW® location to find out more about the right test to answer your questions and concerns.

We all intend to be good parents and to protect our children, but forgetting to put your medication away one time might be enough for your toddler to get to the bottle.  Poison Prevention Week is an excellent time to check your house for missing locks, hazardous substances not put away and to review where you keep things and the steps you take to protect your child. It’s worth taking a little extra time to prevent a tragic poisoning.  Don’t you agree?

Written by www.anylabtestblog.com