Recent studies indicate that 84 percent of all high school students have experimented with drugs, and that drug use begins at a very early age. The actual first experience usually occurs at home.

In this invaluable resource, Dr. J. Theodore Brown, Jr. shows how the family can employ the concept of home drug testing to establish a sophisticated, private and cost-effective program of drug abuse prevention within the privacy of the home. The most effective way to prevent, treat, and control the problem of drug abuse is to stop it where it starts: at home.

J. Theodore Brown, Jr., Ph.D., is President and CEO of Elan, Inc., a Washington, DC-based company that develops home health care products and services. He is also Executive Director of New Family Foundations located in Washington, DC. Dr. Brown developed the first FDA-approved home drug testing System to be sold over the counter -- Dr. Brown's Home Drug Testing System.

EXCERPT FROM DR. J. THEODORE BROWN, JR.'S STOP IT WHERE IT STARTS

THE IMPORTANCE OF PARENTS AND THE HOME ENVIRONMENT

Each day that I read about the violence and crime taking place throughout the country, I think that it is a difficult time to be a child. However, only moments pass and I realize that it is also a difficult time to be a parent. Note the emphasis on parent as opposed to being a mother or father. The former represents care, concern and involvement, teaching proper values and responsibility. The later signifies only a biological relationship. There are many pressures that we must endure in fulfilling our role as parents and providing the basic needs of the family and home. Indeed, there are many elements that com-pete with the proper development of our children.

Quite often there is but one parent, usually the mother; or, if there are two, they both have to work, and they come home so late that it is difficult to get involved with the children's schoolwork. There is often marital conflict, a deficient educational System, negative peer pressure, and other factors competing with what we might consider the proper development of our children. However, as parents, we are still obligated and responsible to do the best we can to provide for and protect our children, our families, and our homes from the things that are harmful, including the use of drugs. How we best protect those we love will differ between individual homes and within the context of a particular culture and community.

Parents are the best individuals to prevent, diagnose, and treat drug abuse. You know your children and loved ones better than do teachers, doctors, psychologists, police, correction officers and other addicts. The maximum input from a responsible home is necessary and critical to the effectiveness and duration of any other treatment that might be proposed. In almost all instances, a person's involvement with drugs starts at home and, when she has completed whatever treatment program proposed, she will return home. If the home environment is negative, or there is no authority at home, then there is nothing to stop her from becoming involved in, or returning to drugs.

To deter drug use, a home drug treatment program should be established. The extent and form that the home drug testing and treatment program assumes will differ from home to home. However, in addition to a demonstration of love, care and concern for the child, there should be discipline and structure to instill accountability to the parents and the family. There should be a sense of responsibility for doing what is required as a member of the household, the family and the community.

Children need to be educated about drugs. Therefore parents need to be educated and will need to have access to information. The information may come from folklore, stories, a religious reference to the Bible, the Koran, or it may come from the Wall Street Journal or the American Journal of Drug Addiction. What matters most is that parents recognize the importance of their role in preventing drug abuse and that you express your concern by becoming informed, educated and knowledgeable about drug abuse. You should, through some format, enhance self-esteem, pride, mutual respect and inspiration to your children and your loved ones.

My System helps provide support and services to families to assist them in establishing a home-based drug abuse program. One of the first ways in which parents are assisted in starting their home-based program is through the Personal Pledge.

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