Getting in the Spirit of National Collegiate Health and Wellness Week

Going to college is a great experience. It is the time when you finally get to study the subjects you are really interested in and when you begin to work towards your future career. You are the one and only responsible for what comes next for Y-O-U, including meeting deadlines, paying bills on time and of course taking care of your health.  Welcome to adulthood!

Now let’s talk about the process to get into college. Yes grades, tests scores and a comprehensive entry essay are a given; but the other side of this process believe it or not comes down to your health. Are your immunizations up to date? Have you been tested for venereal diseases? Some institutions may also require you to take a drug test. All these elements combined and perhaps an interview will determine whether you get in or not.

Next… Congratulations you got accepted! Now the grind begins, you are on a roll and burning the midnight oil has become part of your daily routine. You figured “why not I’m young I’ll catch up on Z’s once I graduate!” Ask yourself do these activities affect my overall health and wellness? The answer to that question is YES! Let’s be honest that midnight oil being burned is not just due to studying and once you graduate the time to catch up on Z’s decreases. It has been reported that some of the main health concerns on campuses across the country include lack of sleep, infectious diseases, alcohol abuse and lack of exercise.

The time to Take Control of Your Health® is now! You might ask yourself, but “how do I do that?” Perhaps doing the good old buddy system could work.  ANY LAB TEST NOW® can be that buddy you need to help you stay on top of things and make sure you’re healthy. We have the tests that you don’t have to study for including titer testing, STD testing and overall wellness checkups. Plus, we have B-12 shots that can help you boost that energy after those all-nighters.  Get in the spirit of National Collegiate Health and Wellness Week, increase your awareness about the importance of staying healthy, fit and get educated on how to do it.  Visit www.anylabtestnow.com to find additional information on how to Take Control of Your Health® and visit a location near you.

Parents – Have You Heard of Molly?

Molly is the new ‘It’ girl on the club scene.  She is the powder or crystalized form of MDMA (methylenedioxy-methamphetamine), a combination of plant fertilizer and other synthetic drugs.  This new drug has similar ‘high’ effects as ecstasy but, can be even more dangerous because the drug’s chemical makeup is frequently altered. Molly comes in pill and powder form, and can be swallowed or snorted.

Dubbed ‘Molly’, short for molecule, she is considered the purest form of ecstasy. Since there are no additional additives to the drug, it has some users believing it is safe. The promise of ‘purity’ has made her a very popular girl not only among the club scene, but also at concerts and festivals all over the country. It has also become the drug of choice for teens to experiment with and they often mix it with alcohol and other drugs, such as marijuana.

The scariest part of Molly is that her users tend to be young. According to the CEO of Southern California’s Passages rehabilitation centers, users’ ages range from 16 to 24.  They don’t realize they are playing Russian Roulette with their health and their lives. The drug has an innocent name and because suppliers advertise it as the ‘pure’ high it has an innocent girl next-door appeal to users. However, taking Molly is very dangerous with both short-term and long-term effects.

There are a number of dangerous side effects from partying with Molly. Due to the fact that Molly targets the brain, it can become extremely addictive. The short-term effects involve feelings of mental stimulation, emotional warmth, enhanced sensory perception, along with increased physical energy. In addition Molly can cause nausea, chills, sweating, teeth clenching, muscle cramping, blurred vision, and sometimes sudden death. The long-term effects can include Hypertension, muscle rigidity, palpitations, overreactive reflexes and more.

As a parent of a teen, what can I do? There are a number of things you can do as a parent. First and foremost keep the lines of communication open. Warn your child about the short-term and long-term dangers of partying with drugs like ‘Molly’.

Remember, there are a number of constant pressures and temptations for your teen every day. Giving them a reason to say NO next time they are offered to ‘Try’ the new ‘It’ drug can be life-saving. Getting them drug tested can be that defense they need to combat peer pressure.  “I can’t. My parents will know” Raising teenagers is a hard job. Let ANY LAB TEST NOW® make it easier for you with the Trust, But Verify Program. For more information about available teen drug testing options visit www.anylabtestnow.com and find the nearest location to you.

Smoking + Quitting = Healthier Lifestyle

We all have guilty pleasures that we enjoy. Many times we give in to these pleasures because it relaxes us and makes us feel better. But sometimes the same guilty pleasures that we enjoy become hazardous to our health. Smoking is a vice that not only affects your health but it also affects the health of those around you.

It has been reported that tobacco use is the largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States. According to the CDC not only does smoking cause heart and lung disease, stroke as well as cancer; but it also shortens the smoker’s life on average by 13 to 14 years. Making the choice to quit is never easy, but sometimes quitting doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

You must be wondering when should I quit smoking? How do I even start? You can start by listing your reasons to quit, putting your health at the top of your list. Choose your quitting date, make a plan, cut back on usage and monitor your progress. Having a support system of course always helps. Recruit a family member or a trusted friend to become your quit coach.

ANY LAB TEST NOW® can be part of the support system you need. Establish a baseline as your starting point with a nicotine/cotinine test that will help you check the levels of nicotine/cotinine in your system and can help you monitor your progress during the various stages of the quitting process. Start living a healthier lifestyle by knowing what is going on inside your body.

Visit an ANY LAB TEST NOW® near you for more information on how we can help you Take Control of Your Health®.

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.