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Middle Schools Promoting Drug Awareness

Columbia University has conducted a recent study concerning drug abuse by middle school students. Addison-Davis Diagnostics, Inc. has taken notice of this survey and has taken a stand to help parents fight the war against drugs. With 28% if middle school students reporting that drugs are either sold, kept, or used at their schools, this is a 47% increase from 2002, according to Columbia`s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse 10th annual teen survey.

The `Parents` Tool` Drug Test, an FDA 510K approved self-contained NIDA (National Institute of Drug Abuse) 5-panel drug test, will be marketed by national retail chains throughout the United States. The `Parents` Tool` drug test will screen for Amphetamines (Crystal Meth), Cocaine, Opiates, Phencyclidine (PCP) and Marijuana (THC).

`Availability is the mother of use,` said Joseph Califano Jr., the center`s president. `We really are putting an enormous number of 12- to 17-year-olds at great risk.` According to the survey, twelve- to seventeen-year-olds who report that there are drugs in their schools are three times likelier to try marijuana and twice as likely to drink alcohol than teens who say their schools are drug free.

`These statistics are a striking insight into the increasing number of children affected by drugs in this country. We are prepared to assist parents throughout the country and be viewed as a partner in their fight against drugs in their children`s lives,` stated Edward W. Withrow III, CEO of Addison-Davis Diagnostics, Inc. Most of the teens surveyed -- 58 percent -- said the legality of cigarettes has no effect on their decision to smoke or abstain, and 48 percent said the fact that marijuana is illegal doesn`t affect whether they use or don`t use the drug. The report found that teens who confided in their parents were at much lower risk of drug abuse.