Alcohol Tests : Play Your Part In Preventing Drinking and Driving

Most people are familiar with MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) which tirelessly works to end DUIs and drinking fatalities. They are often a great clearinghouse for news and information, but today we have the scoop on people and organizations who have stepped up to fight drunk driving. As suppliers of alcohol tests that tell you your blood alcohol content, we applaud them.

The first story stops drunk driving not through use of an alcohol test, but through an emotional test. Check out the video below to learn more:

44,000 people have called this number, which sends a prank call from the point of view of someone who would bail a jailed drinker out to someone you think might be making a bad decision about drinking and driving. Although the concept is generally humorous, the dialogue is a refresher for the person called. Best of all Utah police believe the approach to be working.

The nice thing about the disposable home alcohol test is that you can keep it close on hand, just as you do your phone. When you follow the directions (either saturating a pad with saliva as in the AlcoScreen alcohol test or blowing into a tube as in the Breathscan test). This is another useful and accurate way of determining whether driving is a good idea.

Another promising recent news story on drinking and driving comes out of Buffalo, where recently two alert people spent their weekend spotting risky behavior in the making. The story, in the Buffalo News, describes one man who stopped on the roadside to help a man and his car out of a ditch, only to see the man run away. The man refused an alcohol test and was later charged with a DUI. Another citizen call-in led to a DWI arrest nearby the next night. Making these calls can be very important. Every once in a while, a drunk driver will realize that very thing too: witness a Wisconsin woman who called herself in as a drunk driver a week ago (AP).

Fighting drunken driving cannot be done in any one way alone, but disposable alcohol tests are a great way to start. They can tell you if someone is at a DUI level, has gone past zero tolerance, or even if someone's blood alcohol content is at .30%. You can pick up an affordable alcohol test from Home Health Testing today.

Nicotine Testing & A New Study Suggesting Even Light Smoking Harms

A new study suggests that the surge in nicotine test use by employers may not be uncalled for, even as it pertains to young adults.

The takeaway from the study summarized in US News and World Report is this: "Smoking just one cigarette stiffens the arteries of young adults by 25 percent, says a new study." Stiffened arteries increase the risk for heart disease among other problems, and suggest the growth of the nicotine test in pre-employment screenings may not be unwarranted. The test went like this:

Arterial stiffness was measured in smokers and non-smokers, ages 18 to 30, at rest and post exercise. 5-6 a day smokers were asked not to smoke for 12 hrs before their first exercise test. Before the second exercise test, smokers were allowed one cigarette. Before the final test, they were asked to chew a piece of nicotine gum.

What were the results of this scientific nicotine test? Post exercise, arterial stiffness in non-smokers decreased 3.6 percent. But smokers' arterial stiffness increased 2.2 percent after exercise. Keep in mind, they hadn't had a cigarette at this point. Once they did, arterial stiffness increased 24.5 percent.

This test is significant for nicotine tests and some of our perceptions about young people smoking. It seems that some people believe smoking when you are young is harmless, as long as you intend to quit. Yet this study shows that it is not - artery health is affected, especially in relation to exercise.

Detecting nicotine in the urine is done by detecting its byproduct, cotinine, through a urine-based tobacco test. Businesses, parents, and schools can purchase these tests online by clicking on the nicotine tests page at Home Health Testing. As more and more studies roll in that affirm the harmful effects of nicotine on the body, it would seem nicotine testing is here to stay.

Prescription Drug Problem Grows

As I wrote previously, prescription drug abuse is increasingly making up a larger share of America's drug abuse problem. Even high profile news outlets like CNN have begun to pay attention to the phenomenon. The upside is that all this attention will lead to people learning more about the harmful effects of prescription drug abuse and the routes to recovery, such as a Xanax Drug Test aka a Valium Drug Test.

A sad string of celebrity deaths has brought a lot of attention to this subject recently. DJ AM, for example, overdosed on OxyContin (also known as oxycodone - you can buy an oxycodone drug test here) while Michael Jackson died from overdosing on a very dangerous prescription drug. The point of Jane Velez-Mitchell's CNN article though is, in her own words, "[that] it's also happening right now, as we speak, to average Joes and Janes in homes all across America."

Velez-Mitchell points out that prescription drugs are now the leading cause of drug overdoses in the United States. Prescription drugs are not a safer way to get high - they can lead to dangerous dependencies and are highly addictive. They can be particularly destructive when paired with alcohol.

One of many ways to deter the use of prescription drugs is to use a Xanax Drug Test, aka a Valium Drug Test, to determine if a prescription drug of the benzodiazepine family has been used within the past 3, sometimes up to the past 7, days. Benzodiazepines are a class of prescription drugs that include Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin. Benzodiazepines are psychoactive drugs that all look the same - their core chemical structure is the fusion of a benzene ring and a diazepine ring. So the purchase of a Xanax Drug Test means that you can detect any of the other dangerous prescription drugs in that family as well, with 96% accuracy.

If you believe that a benzodiazepines drug test is a tool you need to combat prescription drug abuse or addiction, you can visit Home Health Testing to buy a Xanax Drug Test or learn more information.

Breaking Down the Stats: Drug Use in the United States

SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) has published its 2007 state by state drug use report. The full report can be viewed at their site - we will examine only a few drug use statistics and try to identify what this means for the home drug test world and for the products within it - things like a hair drug test or a urine test.

What we learn vis-a-vis home drug testing from this report is that drug use is concentrated among the young. For example, 8.1% of the US population over the age of 12 had used an illicit drug in the past month. The drug use is concentrated in the population aged 18-25 - 19.77% percent of people in this age bracket admitted to illicit drug use in the past month. The 12-17 age bracket rates at a 9.66% in this category, slightly higher than the overall population. This is no doubt food for thought for someone thinking about buying a home drug test and wondering what sort of home drug testing they should embark upon. In 10 states, more than 10% of the population aged 12-17 admitted to illicit drug use in the past month.

If you look at marijuana use in particular, the results are more drastic. Although 10.2% of those over 12 used marijuana in the past year, 27.7% of young adults 18-25 used marijuana in the past year.

How do you find out if someone has used illicit drugs in the past month, or even abused prescription drugs? Looking at this chart, you can see that a urine drug test is unlikely to capture a full month's drug use. Marijuana stays in the urine longer than any other commonly abused drug, but that depends on frequency of use.

A hair drug test on the other hand exposes a 90 day history of drug use, if the right amount of hair is submitted (an inch and a half in length is required). A hair drug test can test for 7 different categories of drugs and is FDA Approved. Judging by the statistics in this SAMHSA report, home drug testing makes sense. It can be done at home, in the safety and privacy of your own family, and responds to the high rates of drug use among youth in the USA. A variety of tests can be found here at Home Health Testing.

The Expansion of Drug Tests - Law Enforcement

Americans are quite used to the use of breathalyzers and alcohol testing by our police officers around the country. But did you know that law enforcement officers are increasingly considering using drug testing in the same way?

For example, Lord Adonis, British Secretary of State in the Department for Transport, recently appeared on the radio to discuss the British government’s interest in changing the law so that police officers in the UK can use a saliva drug test to determine whether a driver is impaired on illegal drugs. (Read the article at UK magazine The Engineer’s website). The law currently provides only for observation based tests.

The reason a saliva drug test would be such a great tool for law enforcement officers is that it picks up very recent drug use. Unlike a urine drug test, this test picks up some drugs as recently as 5-10 minutes after their use, and detects marijuana within an hour of use. Results come from a saliva drug test within 5 minutes. They are a tool that officers in Australia have found particularly useful.

A saliva drug test is the best drug test on the market if you would like to know about very recent drug use, or find out if someone is currently high. And it’s not just the police that can use these tests. They are available to consumers. You can purchase one here at http://www.homehealthtesting.com/saliva-c-21_28.html.