Friday, October 10, 2008

Suspicious Behavior

Any student in the Hattiesburg Public School District soon will be able to be tested for alcohol or drugs based on suspicious behavior. That new policy was passed by the school board Tuesday night.

I wonder if they have taken into consideration the many things that can cause false positives and the possible law suites that will be brought as a result.

More than 250 over the counter or prescription drugs can cause you to test positive on a drug test.
  • Pain relievers such as Advil, Nuprin, Motrin
  • Menstrual cramp medications like Midol and Trendar
  • Ibuprofen is known to cause positive samples for Marijuana
  • Anti inflammatories such as Naproxyn
  • Dristan Nasal Spray, Neosynephren, Vicks Nasal Spray, Sudafed
  • Over the counter appetite suppressants which contain propanolamine
  • Common nasal decongestants can cause a positive reading for Amphetamines
  • Medications containing chloropromazine and fluspirilene may yield a positive when tested for amphetamines
  • Vicks Formula 44M containing Dextromethorphan, and Primatene-M containing perylamine as well as the pain reliever Demerol, and prescription anti-depressant Elavil test positive for opiates up to three days
  • Quinine water can also cause a positive reading for opiates.
  • Poppy Seeds such as the ones on a bagel from your favorite deli, represent a potentially serious source of falsely positive results in testing opiate abuse.
  • Nyquil Nighttime Cold Medicine will test positive for Methadone up to two days.
  • Amoxicillin has caused positives for cocaine
  • Diazepam tests positive for PCP
  • A small fraction of the population excrete large amounts of endogenons lysozyme or malate dehydrogenase in their urine which can produce a positive drug test.
  • Africans and certain Orientals might test positive for marijuana due to the pigment melanin in their skin which shows up in a dark person's urine sample.
  • Second hand marijuana or cocaine that you might inhale may give your test a positive result for several days.

2 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh, I'd hate to see my test results from this summer when I was deathly ill with sinus infection, bronchitis, pneumonia and was on every drug under the sun.

    I would have been in deep doo-doo. And I do *not* do drugs.

    I don't know what I think about testing--so many problems with drugs now, but such an invasion of privacy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Frankie, drug use in public schools is a problem but so many things can cause false positives. I would hate to see a child's life destroyed because of a false positive. And I wonder if the schools have even thought about the possibility of false positives? And like you said it is a huge invasion of privacy.

    ReplyDelete

Spam is not tolerated. I welcome on topic comments from you.