While “switched at birth” is a popular plot device in novels, movies and television shows, the true rate is difficult to estimate because most cases are never discovered. It has been suggested that the incidence of baby switching would occur more in hospitals where babies are separated from their mother for short intervals. Mommy Match is another application of DNA for solving complex age old problems and concerns.

Unlike older Methods, a DNA paternity test can be conducted on individuals at any age, including newborns. Samples can be collected at the time of delivery using umbilical cord blood or the sample can be collected after the birthing process, using buccal swabs.

Results will be available in approximately 5-7 business days after receipt at the lab.

For more information on the Mommy Match program, please contact us at (888) 201-0242 or visit our DNA page at http://www.datcs.com/dna

Drug & Alcohol Testing Compliance Services Announces Instant Testing for the Designer Drug K2, or Synthetic Marijuana Now Available at All Four Locations

New instant test identifies illegal chemical found in Synthetic Marijuana, known as K2 or Spice.

TYLER, TX – May 15, 2012 / www.datcs.com

K2 Instant Urine Testing

Drug & Alcohol Testing Compliance Services (DATCS), one of the leading substance abuse managers providing complete, full service drug testing programs to state and federal companies and schools throughout the United States.

DATCS has announced today that they will offer instant K2 testing. This new test will detect illegal Synthetic Cannaboids, now classified by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as Schedule I drugs. Due to the growing use of K2, DATCS provides instant testing for several reasons; it’s found to be “4 to 100 times stronger than marijuana”, abuse has increased by “139% from 2010 to 2011.”

DATCS recommends K2 testing for parents of teenagers, schools, safety-sensitive occupations, and company drug policies. When you visit any of their locations, a DATCS employee will take time to educate you about the latest designer drugs. DATCS also provides an online Parent Zone on their website, www.datcs.com.

K2 users believe the product is legal because of deceptive marketing; gas stations, head shops and websites, including eBay, sell the product as incense. Synthetic cannabis also goes by the name “K2, K3 Legal, Spice, Syn, Haze, Cloud Nine, and many others.”

Call DATCS for more information about K2 testing, including pricing and bundled packages.

About Drug & Alcohol Testing Compliance Services

Drug and Alcohol Testing Services is one of the leading substance abuse managers providing complete, full service drug testing programs to state and federal companies and schools throughout the United States.  Our nationwide database of approved collection sites allows us to provide services to any customer in any state.  Our corporate office is in Longview, Texas, with other physical locations in Tyler, Texas; Wichita Falls, Texas; and Bossier City, Louisiana.

Contact: Stephen Clark
stephen.clark@datcs.com
903.534.3893 ext. 303
www.DATCS.com

What is DNA Paternity Testing?

When the testing is done to determine who the father is, it is known as DNA Paternity Testing. It is about 99.99% conclusive. It is usually not necessary to do maternity testing.

DNA Paternity Testing is now widely used for scientific purposes, to determine paternity concerns, or to settle legal disputes.

What does DNA Paternity Testing involve?
Usually, DNA from the alleged parents and the child are required for the DNA Paternity Testing. Having access to the maternal DNA makes the testing easier, as, with this part conclusively settled, you only need to check the other half of the child’s DNA with that of the father. If the DNA sequence shows a strong similarity, then the Paternity is proved. If there is no similarity, then the person is not the father.

DNA Paternity Testing done without analyzing the mother’s DNA is called ‘Motherless’ DNA Testing. This involves a bit more of lab work, but the results are just as conclusive.

In case the father is missing, a DNA viability test can help determine the paternity. The DNA Viability Test involves testing material like preserved samples of hair or other body tissues.

What are the methods used in DNA Paternity Testing?
There are two methods more commonly used in DNA Paternity Testing the Polymer Chain Reaction Method (PCR) and the Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP).

For DNA Paternity Testing, saliva samples from the buccal or cheek region are taken from the people to be tested and these are processed in the laboratory to extract theDNA of each.

The extracted DNA samples are analyzed and compared.

You can get the results of the DNA Paternity Testing over a period of 3 to 4 days. The results are delivered with a guarantee of confidentiality and accuracy.

There are also kits available to do DNA Paternity Testing in the privacy of your own home. (Non-Court Admissible)

How is DNA Paternity Testing done?
In the PCR method, DNA is extracted, fragmented, amplified and then separated by the process of gel electrophoresis. The sequence of the DNA fragments is then studied and compared.

In the RFLP method, the extracted DNA is fragmented by enzymes and the DNA fragments are sorted by size and then undergo identification.

Prenatal Paternity testing
DNA Paternity Testing can be done even to determine the paternity of an unborn child. This is called a Prenatal Paternity Test. In such a case, samples of the unborn baby’s DNA are obtained through either the Chorionic Villi Sampling (CVS) procedure, in which placenta cells are collected, or the Amniocentesis Procedure, in which fetal cells from the amniotic fluid are collected. Both of these testing methods are not without a certain amount of risk as they are invasive procedures and should not be undertaken without the advice of an Obstetrician or Gynecologist. (We Don’t Recommend This Method)

It is alot safer and a lot less expensive to have the DNA Paternity Testing done right after the child is born. This can be done by taking a blood sample from the umbilical cord.

Legality of DNA Paternity Testing
Different countries around the world have different rules and regulations regarding DNA Paternity Testing. But in a majority of cases, it is not legal to conduct a DNA Paternity Test without the prior permission of the individuals concerned.

DNA Paternity Testing done for personal purposes at home using DNA Testing Kits cannot be used as evidence in a legal court. For legal purposes, a Chain of Custody documentation process that follows due legal procedures is required DATCS Offers Court Admissible and Non-Court Admissible DNA Tests

MONDAY May 7, 2012 — Among U.S. adolescents, misuse of prescription painkillers peaks at age 16, earlier than thought, a new large survey analysis reveals.

“What our findings suggest is that if we wait until the last year of high school or college to take some kind of action that could prevent the misuse of opioid painkillers, it’ll be a case of too little, too late,” cautioned study co-author James Anthony, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Many experts consider “extramedical” painkiller abuse — taking pain drugs such as OxyContin (oxycodone) and Vicodin (hydrocodone) to get high rather than to relieve extreme pain — the country’s most serious drug challenge. Some kids had already misused these drugs by age 13 or 14, or eighth grade, the researchers found.

Anthony and his colleagues discuss their work, co-funded by the university and the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, in the May 7 online edition of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Concerned by rising rates of painkiller prescriptions and related overdoses, the team analyzed information gathered between 2004 and 2008 by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The information was self-reported by nearly 120,000 males and females between 12 and 21 years old.

The authors found that while roughly one in 60 kids between 12 and 21 initiates prescription pain reliever abuse at some point in that age range, the risk for doing so peaks at about 2.5 percent by age 16.

Approximately one in 30 to 40 young people initiated such abuse at 16, a rate higher than that reported by the 12- to 14-year-old set or 19- to 21-year-olds, the researchers said.

All of the respondents reported that up until the year they participated in the poll they had not previously used pain relievers not prescribed for them.

The team cautioned that the findings are based solely on participants’ recollections of abuse, rather than on medical testing. As well, the overall pool of people surveyed could have been skewed by an unwillingness on the part of potential abusers to get involved in such a poll.

The authors warned that their findings highlight a weakness in public health strategies that take sole aim at college-age drug abusers, given that the roots of the problem seem firmly planted among younger students.

Dr. Marc Galanter, director of the division of alcoholism and substance abuse within the psychiatry department at New York University Langone Medical Center in New York City, agreed that the current analysis “correctly points to the need for prevention and early intervention.”

“Prescription pain relievers are becoming our nation’s gravest drug-abuse problem,” Galanter said. “And a pattern that often emerges is that younger adolescents may use these pills intermittently or occasionally, and then later fall into heavier use and addiction. So the earlier this issue can be addressed in that sequence, the greater will be the opportunity for a constructive outcome.”

Anthony added, however, that “even school-based programs targeting younger kids about the dangers of opioids are not going to be the whole answer.”

Public health efforts in schools need to be integrated with “efforts on the front lines of clinical practice where these medicines are being prescribed,” he said.

In some cases, doctors and dentists could prescribe instead over-the-counter ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), or consider dispensing smaller quantities, instead of a 30- or 40-day supply, he said.

What can parents do?

Besides thinking about locking up their medicines, he said parents should maintain open lines of communication with their children and pay attention to what’s going on in their lives.

“What are they doing that’s engaging them, rewarding them, and are those activities socially adaptive?” Anthony said. “Because when you begin to see these activities — swimming, playing baseball, watching movies, video-gaming, whatever — start to narrow and mood problems set in, that’s the time to pay a little more attention and stay engaged.”

More information

For more on prescription drug abuse, visit the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Article Source

They’re not drinking the gel straight from the dispenser. Some of the teens reportedly used salt to isolate the ethyl alcohol in the disinfectant, turning the gel into a shot of something like liquor; others go online to find distillation instructions. Since most hand sanitizers are 62 percent to 65 percent ethyl alcohol, the drink distilled from it can be as high as 120 proof. (In contrast, a standard shot of vodka is about 40 percent alcohol, or 80 proof.)

“All it takes is just a few swallows and you have a drunk teenager,” Cyrus Rangan, director of the toxicology bureau for the county public health department and a medical toxicology consultant for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times. “There is no question that it is dangerous.”

In the past, people in search of a quick high have turned to cough medicine (in large amounts, the cough suppressant dextramethorphan can cause hallucinations and “out-of-body” sensations), alcohol-based mouthwash, and even common kitchen ingredients like vanilla or lemon extract.

The hand-sanitizer trend is alarming, but it’s not necessarily new. In 2007, The New England Journal of Medicine published an article about a 49-year-old prison inmate who went form “usually calm” to “described as being ‘red-eyed,’ ‘loony,’ ‘combative,’ and ‘intoxicated, lecturing everyone about life” after drinking from a gallon container of a popular hand sanitizer over the course of several hours. According to a 2012 report in “Critical Care Medicine,” from 2005 to 2009 the number of new cases of hand sanitizer ingestion increased by an average of 1,894 per year. And the American Association of Poison Control Centers says that in 2006, poison centers reported 11,914 “exposures” to ethanol-containing hand sanitizers, 2,307 to people older than 6.

The six California teens arrived in the emergency rooms with slurred speech and burning sensations in their stomachs. Some of them were so drunk that they needed to be monitored, CBS News reported.

“It is kind of scary that they go to that extent to get a shot of essentially hard liquor,” Rangan pointed out.

Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told CBS News that he’s seen something similar, when a few teenagers ingested hand sanitizer as a “dare.”

“They denied drinking any ‘alcohol’, had no smell of alcohol on their breath, but when their blood alcohol was quite elevated, they later admitted to drinking the hand sanitizer,” Glatter said.

Concerned parents should consider monitoring their kids’ use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers, buying foam-based ones that are more difficult to distill or drink as-is, or using non-alcohol versions instead.

What to Expect When You Stop Smoking Cannabis

Some people claim that there are no withdrawals when you try to stop smoking cannabis. It is important to realize that these people were never truly addicted to it – or they never really quit smoking cannabis. The withdrawal symptoms are very real, and are similar to the same withdrawal symptoms that you might experience if you were addicted to alcohol or tobacco and suddenly denied your body – and your mind – of the substance. Headaches, nausea, shaking, irritability, profuse sweating, and more can be expected.

Seven Steps to Stop Smoking Cannabis

1/ Plan your quit date. Having a date in mind is very important, because it enables you to mentally work up to the aspect of being without cannabis. Some people will plan a date three to four weeks away, and start gradually cutting down the amount that they smoke during this period, which is a good idea.

2/ Change your friends. If your friends smoke cannabis, you may need new friends. This doesn’t mean that your friends are bad people. It means that they are going to continue to smoke marijuana, and this will have an impact on you. Try to find friends who do not smoke marijuana, and limit your contact with those who do.

3/ Talk to Your Doctor. Your private doctor probably already knows that you are smoking weed. He or she will not report you to the authorities, but they will do all that is in their power to help you quit. They may even prescribe you medication that makes it easier, and if nothing else, they will be aware of what is going on in the even that you experience the type of withdrawal symptoms that require medical aid.

4/ Buy the right foods. Chocolate is great when you are trying to quit. Also have plenty of water, fresh fruit, hard candies, and gum on hand.

5/ Line up your support. You need someone that can help you through the worst of the withdrawal. Preferably, this person will come and stay with you – or you will go stay with them – for at least the first five days. They need to know what to expect, and what to do.

6/ Plan time off from work and other activities. If you have an addiction to cannabis, you cannot expect to work and continue with your normal activities during the worst of the withdrawal period. Try to plan your quit date for the start of a vacation.

7/ Quit. When your quit date arrives, simply quit. Make sure that you don’t have a stash in the house, and that you’ve cut yourself off from your connection. Tell yourself that within a few days, the addiction will be broken.

How long does it take to break the Cannabis Addiction?

The amount of time it takes to break the addiction to marijuana can vary from one person to the next, and will depend on several factors. The average time that breaking the addiction can take, according to experts, is from ten to twenty six days, but it could take longer. Factors that play a role include the amount of cannabis that is consumed on a regular basis, how long you’ve been smoking it, and how badly you really want to quit.

Prevent Teen Drug Abuse with Prevention

Treatment of Teenage Drug Abuse can include preventing it.  Talk with your teenager, know what is going on in their life, what their worries and fears are, and know who they are associating with.  Peer relationships, educational problems and family issues can greatly affect the risk of drug use.

If you suspect your teen is using drugs it is crucial that you talk to them about it.  If you have undisputable evidence that your teen is in fact using drugs you must get help for them immediately. Infrequent drug use can progress to frequent drug use without intervention.

Teen Drug Abuse Treatment Options

Teen drug abuse treatment includes programs for drug awareness, drug free programs, psychological therapy, private counseling, group counseling, medications for management of withdrawal such as methadone and residential treatment programs. Many of these options include inpatient or outpatient choices.

When an adult is addicted to drugs we say it is their choice whether or not they get treatment, they have to want treatment for it to succeed.  When it is your teenager, we don’t always have that option.  This may mean having them admitted to an inpatient or residential facility initially.

Choosing the Right Teen Drug Abuse Treatment

The reason for drug use and the intensity or stage of the addiction can be key factors in determining which rehabilitation program is the right one for your teenager. An individually designed treatment plan should be established based on their personal issues.

By researching and finding ways to help ease the withdrawal in a way that targets the individual needs, the chances of successful treatment are increased.  Rubber stamped programs do not always address the needs of individual people.  Every person is different, and has different reasons that they have started to, or continued to turn to drugs.

Education about the effects and risks of drug use or continuation of drug use is a very important part of drug rehabilitation.  Whichever route you choose education should be included as part of recovery.  Education should not only cover risks and effects, but coping strategies that will enable continued recovery after treatment.

A supportive and caring environment is essential for recovery from drug addiction. Individual support can come from their families and loved ones, their clergymen, counselors and sponsors to help guide these troubled teenagers to a clean and sober life.

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We need to put to rest the thought that there is such a thing as a lone drug user, a person whose habits affect only himself or herself. Drug use, including marijuana use, is not a victimless crime. Some communities may resist involvement because they think someone else’s drug use is not hurting them.

But this kind of not-my-problem thinking is tragically misguided. Ask those same people about secondhand smoke from cigarettes, and they’ll quickly acknowledge the harm that befalls nonsmokers. Secondhand smoke is a well-known problem, one that Americans are becoming more unwilling to bear. We need to apply the same common-sense thinking to the even more pernicious secondhand effects of drug use.

Take for instance the disastrous effects of marijuana smoking on driving. As the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) noted, “Epidemiology data from . . . traffic arrests and fatalities indicate that after alcohol, marijuana is the most frequently detected psychoactive substance among driving populations.”

Marijuana causes drivers to experience decreased car handling performance, increased reaction times, distorted time and distance estimation, sleepiness, impaired motor skills, and lack of concentration.

Driving While Impaired

The extent of the problem of marijuana-impaired driving is startling. One in six (or 600,000) high school students drive under the influence of marijuana, almost as many as drive under the influence of alcohol, according to estimates released in September 2003 by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). A study of motorists pulled over for reckless driving showed that, among those who were not impaired by alcohol, 45 percent tested positive for marijuana.

Those who patrol streets and highways, know that the consequences of marijuana-impaired driving can be tragic. For example, four children and their van driver-nicknamed Smokey by the children for his regular marijuana smoking-died in April 2002 when a Tippy Toes Learning Academy van veered off a freeway and hit a concrete bridge abutment. He was found at the crash scene with marijuana in his pocket.

Innocents Killed

Some such drug-impaired drivers will be detected through the Drug Recognition Expert program, which operates under the direction of the IACP and is supported by NHTSA. However, if we are to bolster cases against drugged drivers, greater protection for innocents on the road requires the development of affordable roadside drug detection tests, and some are in the testing phase now.

Secondhand smoke from marijuana kills other innocents as well. Last year, two Philadelphia firefighters were killed when they responded to a residential fire stemming from an indoor marijuana grow. In New York City, an eight-year-old boy, Deasean Hill, was killed by a stray bullet just steps from his Brooklyn home after a drug dealer sold a dime bag of marijuana on another dealer’s turf.

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Use of marijuana has adverse health, safety, social, academic, economic, and behavioral consequences; and children are the most vulnerable to its damaging effects. Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in America and is readily available to kids.

Compounding the problem is that the marijuana of today is not the marijuana of the baby boomers 30 years ago. Average THC levels rose from less than 1 percent in the mid-1970s to more than 8 percent in 2004. And the potency of B.C. Bud, a popular type of marijuana cultivated in British Columbia, Canada, is roughly twice the national average-ranging from 15 percent THC content to 20 percent or even higher.

Marijuana use can lead to dependence and abuse. Marijuana was the second most common illicit drug responsible for drug treatment admissions in 2002-outdistancing crack cocaine, the next most prevalent cause.

Shocking to many is that more teens are in treatment each year for marijuana dependence than for alcohol and all other illegal drugs combined. This is a trend that has been increasing for more than a decade: in 2002, 64 percent of adolescent treatment admissions reported marijuana as their primary substance of abuse, compared to 23 percent in 1992.

Gateway Drug

Marijuana is a gateway drug. In drug law enforcement, rarely do we meet heroin or cocaine addicts who did not start their drug use with marijuana. Scientific studies bear out our anecdotal findings.

For example, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported, based on a study of 300 sets of twins, that marijuana-using twins were four times more likely than their siblings to use cocaine and crack cocaine, and five times more likely to use hallucinogens such as LSD.

Furthermore, the younger a person is when he or she first uses marijuana, the more likely that person is to use cocaine and heroin and become drug-dependent as an adult. One study found that 62 percent of the adults who first tried marijuana before they were 15 were likely to go on to use cocaine. In contrast, only one percent or less of adults who never tried marijuana used heroin or cocaine.

Significant Health Problems

Smoking marijuana can cause significant health problems. Marijuana contains more than 400 chemicals, of which 60 are cannabinoids. Smoking a marijuana cigarette deposits about three to five times more tar into the lungs than one filtered tobacco cigarette.

Consequently, regular marijuana smokers suffer from many of the same health problems as tobacco smokers, such as chronic coughing and wheezing, chest colds, and chronic bronchitis. In fact, studies show that smoking three to four joints per day causes at least as much harm to the respiratory system as smoking a full pack of cigarettes every day.

Marijuana smoke also contains 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke and produces high levels of an enzyme that converts certain hydrocarbons into malignant cells.

Mental Health Problems

In addition, smoking marijuana can lead to increased anxiety, panic attacks, depression, social withdrawal, and other mental health problems, particularly for teens. Research shows that kids aged 12 to 17 who smoke marijuana weekly are three times more likely than nonusers to have suicidal thoughts.

Marijuana use also can cause cognitive impairment, to include such short-term effects as distorted perception, memory loss, and trouble with thinking and problem solving. Students with an average grade of D or below were found to be more than four times as likely to have used marijuana in the past year as youths who reported an average grade of A.

For young people, whose brains are still developing, these effects are particularly problematic and jeopardize their ability to achieve their full potential.

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Over the past decade, drug policy in some foreign countries, particularly those in Europe, has gone through some dramatic changes toward greater liberalization with failed results. Consider the experience of the Netherlands, where the government reconsidered its legalization measures in light of that country’s experience.

After marijuana use became legal, consumption nearly tripled among 18- to 20-year-olds. As awareness of the harm of marijuana grew, the number of cannabis coffeehouses in the Netherlands decreased 36 percent in six years.

Almost all Dutch towns have a cannabis policy, and 73 percent of them have a no-tolerance policy toward the coffeehouses.

In 1987 Swiss officials permitted drug use and sales in a Zurich park, which was soon dubbed Needle Park, and Switzerland became a magnet for drug users the world over. Within five years, the number of regular drug users at the park had reportedly swelled from a few hundred to 20,000.

The area around the park became crime-ridden to the point that the park had to be shut down and the experiment terminated.

Smoking Rates Increased Among Teens

Marijuana use by Canadian teenagers is at a 25-year peak in the wake of an aggressive decriminalization movement. At the very time a decriminalization bill was before the House of Commons, the Canadian government released a report showing that marijuana smoking among teens is “at levels that we haven’t seen since the late ’70s when rates reached their peak.”

After a large decline in the 1980s, marijuana use among teens increased during the 1990s, as young people apparently became “confused about the state of federal pot laws.”