High Schools Get Serious About Alcohol Testing

My history professor had a keg on the cover of his yearbook. I don’t think that would fly in today’s day and age. Drugs and alcohol are serious offenses in schools and education professionals are cracking down. It’s not just athletes being suspended from games that have teachers talking; parents, other school faculty and law enforcement all agree that random drug and <a onClick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/article_exit_link');" href=http://www.trimegalabs.co.uk/resources/alcohol-high-school-testing.php>alcohol high school testing</a> should be done to prevent students from forming bad habits and getting into more trouble than owing an overdue library book fee.

Alcohol Testing Devices at High School Dances
Besides volunteer chaperones and cheesy photographers, high school students can expect <a onClick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/article_exit_link');" href=http://www.trimegalabs.co.uk/resources/alcohol-testing-device.php>alcohol testing devices</a> to measure their blood alcohol level before they are allowed entrance into school dances today. Recently, one high school in Florida tested all 400 students coming to the Home Coming dance. Instead of singling out students who appeared intoxicated, they tested everyone. They used a breath-detection device called Alco-Sensor FST. The person being tested blows into the device and a positive or negative reading is available in 10 to 15 seconds after.

Faculty and parents are not trying to be hard-nosed about students having a good time at events, it’s more of a matter of life and death. One preventable drunk driving accident isn’t worth not doing it. Some student balk at the intrusiveness of the tests, claiming that there must be another way to take preventable action. Others claim that while testing at the dance is a good idea but what about the rest of the school year? How do we test perhaps the students who don’t attend dances or other events?

A Look at Other Alcohol Testing Devices
As technology increases, new alcohol testing devices will be created but for now, physical, intrusive blood alcohol level testing will be performed via breath, saliva, urine alcohol testing and even sweat samples, which may not sound like the most attractive way to start a formal dance. Unless, schools decided to implement the hair alcohol test, which is a far less intrusive alcohol and drug detection test that can determine more than 90 days of drug and alcohol abuse. Because the hair alcohol test doesn’t give immediate results, the hair alcohol test would be a test given to students randomly before the dance to filter out who would be tested due to a history of abuse.

How Hair Alcohol Testing Works
A series of assessments called FAEE, fatty acid ethyl esters and EtG alcohol testing are done to measure the amount of FAEE and EtG markers that are revealed in the drug follicle hair test. The more alcohol a person has consumed, the more markers will be present on a test. With only a pencil thickness amount of hair cut from the scalp, a drug and hair alcohol testing laboratory can find out what a person’s approximated consumption of alcohol has been up to a 30 day history and if the hair sample is longer, as much as a year of alcohol consumption can be tested. There are pros and cons of course no matter how you test and who is tested. One thing for certain is that hair alcohol testing is far less intrusive than requesting any other bodily fluid. Also, at $60 to test each student once a year far outweighs the costs associated with other forms of alcohol testing. The one thing we can all agree on is safety first in high schools and whether breathalyzers or hair samples are taken, parents and faculty can all rest easier knowing that students are leaving high school events sober and safe. Who knows, hair alcohol testing on all students could help detect an alcoholic student and help prevent them from killing themselves in the future.