Helping Mom Say ‘No’ to Drug Testing

Readers of the View section know that at Little League games and debutante balls and county fairs, parents are shouting: “Honey, I just busted the kids.”

Frustrated with a seemingly endless drug menace, alert moms and pops are taking matters into their own hands. Through the use of home testing kits, parents are learning to detect drug abuse early.

One such kit, marketed by the nonprofit Athletes for a Strong America and costing $49.95, involves the simple use of a flashlight to check for dilation and contraction of the pupils. This way, parents can check their kids and discover the big eyeballs of uppers or the pinpoint pupils of downers.

(Hey, kids, don’t get the bright idea of taking both to maintain a mid-level eyeball. Won’t work.)

Users of the flashlight kit say they want to monitor their children so that bad habits can be nipped in the bud. They also claim that knowing that he will be checked can be an extra incentive to the child struggling to just say no. This way, the child can say, “Gosh, Buzz, I’d love to take those bennies with you, but see, I’ve got to get right home to my mom, who’s waiting in my closet with a flashlight.”

The problem, of course, is that the flashlight kit is not foolproof or all-inclusive. It may be misleading in the search for the current adolescent drug of choice--alcohol. Alcohol has no predictable effect on the pupils (although it can cause profound silliness in the teachers). The concerned parents should acquaint themselves with the signs and symptoms of this most abused drug.

Alcohol is frequently referred to by its street names: booze, hooch, suds, sauce, brew and an ’85 North Coast fume blanc. Its physiological effects range from a mild euphoria to an ugly megalomania. Signs and symptoms of alcohol abuse include slurred speech, irregular gait and the odd oil tanker steered into a shopping center.

There are several ways to detect alcohol use in your children. Here at the Omniscient Parent Institute, we are marketing the Rapid Jaw Movement Test for only $49.95. It turns out that most children will try to cover the smell of alcohol with ordinary household chewing gum. In fact, alcohol abuse is the leading cause of gum-chewing in adolescents. If your child is a chewer, you should have him evaluated for alcohol abuse.

For $79.95, we can send you the Prairie Home IQ Kit. Lack of mental alertness is one of the common signs of alcohol abuse. Should your child begin acting like a nitwit, this kit will help you assess his mental abilities. A sample dialogue from the kit:

Parent: What two oceans border the continental United States?

Kid: Gosh, I don’t know. We don’t learn anything in today’s failing school system.

Parent: Don’t give me that, you little sleazebag. You’re on the sauce!

Finally, for the parent who fears that his child may have graduated from alcohol to the harder stuff, we offer the Complete Home Detection Kit. This includes flashlight, siren, reflex hammer, handcuffs and a tiny holding cell.

It is recommended that parents wait until the middle of the night, then stand outside the child’s room and blast him with the siren. Dad gets on the bullhorn (batteries not included) and shouts, “Freeze, Junior. This is a bust.”

Mom proceeds to the living room, where she sets up a makeshift interrogation cell with dripping water and overhead light bulb--and cigarettes for a reward should the kid break under pressure and confess.

This is the least that concerned parents can do.

Our cities and towns may be ruled by crack kings. Our foreign policy may be beholden to rich drug lords. Our national policy may appear increasingly like that of a pitiful, helpless junkie. But in living rooms all across America, we can hope to hear, “Honey, I just Mirandized the kid.”