Thanks Rachel for your insight into the teen mind. I learn a lot from your comments and hope you will keep expressing them. You seem like a delightful girl and your parents should be proud of you.

As someone who has followed drug issues for 40 years, and has had two daughters graduate from Fairfax high schools--there is no disagreement that kids should not be using drugs because it is simply too dangerous when your body and mind are still developing. And kids are not good at judging risks so adults have to tell them "NO" and explain the reasons. Currently we are failing badly-- more than half of our young people will have tried tobacco and marijuana before they leave high school and way more than half will have tried alcohol.

I believe the main problem is our over-emphasis on marijuana, which is actually by far the least dangerous of these three drugs. Kids hear repeated scare stories about pot, realize that they are exaggerated, and that makes them distrustful of all drug warnings. While the adults are focused on marijuana, the kids quietly start using tobacco and/or alcohol--those are the "gateway" drugs because almost no one tries marijuana who is not already using alcohol and/or tobacco. Parents need to emphasize that alcohol and tobacco ARE drugs--dangerous, addictive, mood-altering drugs. Alcohol also has the nasty side-effects of causing fatal car crashes and of inducing violence in some people (marijuana impairs driving ability, but to a much lesser degree, and it does not induce violence). Nicotine addiction usually starts before age 18 and is very hard to break--and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids says 152,000 Virginia kids will die from tobacco.

The best weapon to coincide with communication is a home drug test kit. Myteensavers believes they should be in every medicine cabinet in America. Right now more teens are reaching into mom and dad's pills than ever before. You can't smell when your teen is popping pills. Room searches won't work either. Home drug testing is a great tool to ensure that your teen is clean. It allows you to expand the circle of trust and allow your teen a later curfew, or more freedoms on the condition that they drug test.

Parents need to be more responsible and the best thing they can do is utilize home drug test kits.

Not only do teens need to be educated on drugs but parents have to be educated also about the new dangerous drugs that start out and are available to all legally, including online and in convenience stores. Two of them, synthetic marijuana and bath salts used to get high soon will be illegal in Virginia. Bath salts were not on the drug scene until recently but can cause lasting effects that have led to suicides.

The bill is awaiting the signature of Gov. McDonnell and would take effect immediately.

I am proud of Virginia being proactive in outlawing synthetic dope and bath salts instead of being reactive before it becomes epidemic in our area as it has in other areas.

All,

I think Leslie raises an important point. The job of being a parent relative to drug use is infinitely harder than it was ten years ago. The amount of substances out there that can do harm increases practically by the moment. It's asking a lot to keep track of all that. Is Jeff's proactive test-your-child approach the way to go? Or is it better to do what Lori seems to be saying, which is to give your kids the right values and then trust them to make the right decision? Maybe parents wouldn't have to worry so much if some of the drugs were legalized--and therefore less punitive, as Richard hopes for. Take away the illegal aspect and kids will be less drawn to the "danger" element of drug use?

Virginia's action on the two new drugs is a typical government response--prohibit them, even without solid information about how bad they actually are. From what we do know, it seems likely that they are more dangerous than marijuana but much less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. These are the drugs our kids almost always start with--and unfortunately have little trouble in obtaining--so if they can't get Spice or K2 they'll just go back to the old standbys, including the tobacco that eventually will kill 152,000 of them.
If parents want to keep their kids drug-free, far more effective than test kits is to lead by example--allow no alcohol or tobacco in your home, never order an alcoholic drink when you're eating out with the kids, etc.--in short, lead a drug-free life yourself. If they see you smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer, or having a glass of wine, then you are teaching them that drug use is okay, and you are faced with the more difficult task of trying to convince them that some drugs are okay but not others.

But there is a great deal of solid information and evidence regarding the harm inflicted on users of both synthetic marijuana and bath salts. Synthetic marijuana symptoms include fast heart rate, confusion and nausea. Symptoms of bath salts include increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, agitation, hallucinations, extreme paranoia and delusions. With the bath salts, there has also been incidents of suicide as well as extreme violence directed at others. This evidence comes directly from the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) database called the National Poison Data System(NDPS) as well as poison center managing and medical directors. The NPDS database has data from all information and human poison exposure case phone calls into all poison centers across the country.

I think that tobacco should be classified as a Class I substance but I know that won't happen.

In addition, even if parents do not smoke, drink or do drugs, their children's friends can still provide a negative influence. Sometimes, being accepted by a group is more important to a teen than what they have been taught at home.