Yesterday on Oprah the subject of alcoholism was discussed, particularly as it pertains to women. Oprah’s site has many resources on the subject. Other resources targeted at women can be found at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism page here. You can also purchase an alcohol test online.

The appearance of this Oprah episode is timely, as a few tragic recent news stories and a new study have directed attention at the rate at which women drink. The popularity of alcohol tests may lead you to believe it is increasing, and you would be right.

According to CNN, arrests of women driving under the influence jumped by nearly 30 percent during the 1998-2007 period. Women still do not drink as much as men – men have 4 times the amount of DUIs than women – but it seems they are catching up. Especially when you consider that the rate of men’s DUI arrests is declining.

One of the issues with drinking and driving is that you cannot be 100% sure what your blood alcohol concentration is by simply counting your drinks. For example, Oprah’s site has a helpful feature about alcohol content in drinks. But an alcohol test can more precisely tell you what your blood alcohol concentration is. Alcohol tests like the AlcoScreen can serve to remind you of the facts, with 95% accuracy, when you are out with friends.

If you are interested in more information on alcohol and/or alcoholism, you can check out the FAQ of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and some of the features available online about Oprah’s program, including a section about high functioning alcoholics. You can find an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting near you here. Finally, alcohol tests are available for purchase in 3 different varieties, able to tell you blood alcohol concentration at varying levels, up to .30%. These tests are easy to use, disposable, and available on a confidential basis from Home Health Testing.

How are these different from sobriety checkpoints, used in the United States to check car by car regardless of suspicion for alcohol abuse? Well, unlike setting up a roadblock for a limited amount of time, which is legal in the United States, random alcohol testing gives police officers the authority to pull over any driver, on any road, at any time, and conduct a breath test – regardless of whether the driver seems impaired.

According to the Center for Disease Control, US sobriety checkpoints typically reduce alcohol-related crashes by 20%. But Australia and Ireland have found that a random roadside alcohol test policy resulted in 36% and 23% drops in fatal DUI crashes. This is why Canada is considering implementing its own random roadside law.

In Canada, this is a very high-level and sophisticated debate. Mothers Against Drunk Driving have produced a paper detailing the benefits of random alcohol testing and demonstrating that it is actually law in many European countries. Debate centers around whether such a law would violate Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, similar to the US Bill of Rights.

What might this mean for American citizens? Well, alcohol testing has already been through the Supreme Court – sobriety checkpoints have, at least. In Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz (1990) the Supreme Court found by a decision of 6-3 that properly conducted sobriety checkpoints/roadblocks are indeed constitutional.

But an alcohol test conducted without suspicion at any time on the road? This is not something the US has quite dealt with, yet. The fact that our neighbors from the North are suggests it may be in our future though.

If you would like to alcohol test yourself or others, affordable, accurate and disposable options exist. You can purchase such a home drug test from Home Health Testing today.

Australian Medical Association Queensland president Mason Stevenson has made a recommendation that bars and pubs in Australia install free alcohol tests to deter drunken driving.

In an article published today in the Courier Mail, Dr. Stevenson suggests that the “rule of thumb” methods of determining blood alcohol content (BAC) are not sufficient compared to an alcohol test.  ”You can not use complicated algorithms in the normal world,” he said, referring to a West Australian government initiative to calculate BAC with 5 steps that includes steps like factoring in the number of drinks, the amount of alcohol per drink, the time over which they have been consumed and the drinker’s weight.

A much more precise method to figure out your BAC is to use an alcohol test, the very thing Dr. Stevenson suggests needs to be available for free in hotels and clubs.  Describing this as “a most responsible action” Dr. Stevenson said “It has the potential to save lives.”

Clubs Queensland executive officer Doug Flockhart is open to the idea and would like to see if having an alcohol test freely available makes a social difference (you could argue based on the article cited here that a social difference has already been made by freely distributing alcohol tests, at least in America).  The CEO of the Australian Hotels Association questioned whether free access to breathalyzers would result in patrons drinking more to as a type of game.

Imagine then a compromise – extremely cheap but widely available disposable alcohol tests, like those of the AlcoScreen and the BreathScan.  At the price of $3.00 a piece, they can provide you quick and accurate results on the go in a cost-efficient manner.  Either alcohol test is a great way to help a buddy make a safe decision about alcohol consumption.

While it’s unclear if Dr. Stevenson’s proposal will go anywhere, you can take matters into your own hands and confidentially purchase alcohol tests from Home Health Testing today.

Foxborough High School Principal Jeffrey Theodoss claims that chaperones and teachers spend an excessive amount of time trying to figure out if a student is under the influence.  Defending his use of a breathaylzer in school, he says  ”A Breathalyzer just becomes a clean way of following through. And if we’re wrong? We will apologize.”

12 incidents in the past academic year convinced people that an alcohol test could be useful for the school.  The plan has support from parents, but some are uncertain.  One parent would prefer that an alcohol test is only deployed at a school event, not in the regular school day setting.  Another parent claims that she can’t imagine parents thinking this type of alcohol testing would be an invasion of privacy.

The alcohol tests that will be used are very fast and will register a positive for alcohol if the alcohol blood concentration is over 0.02%.  According to the proposed policy, a student who refuses to take the test will be disciplined, and of course disciplinary action awaits the student that fails.  No police action on a student that has failed the test seems to be proposed at this time.

The technology being used by this high school is certainly not rare!  You can buy a disposable breath alcohol test or a disposable saliva alcohol test to determine whether someone has been drinking at Home Health Testing.  They are very affordable and easy to use.  The Breathscan breath alcohol tests come in 0.02% and 0.08% models.  You don’t need to go out and buy a breathalyzer to monitor alcohol use successfully.  Instead for under $30 dollars you can confidentially order 10 tests online and monitor alcohol use not just effectively but cost-effectively.

The Chicago Tribune documents the way parents are reacting to the frequency of alcohol use in teens – by alcohol testing their kids. With the use of an alcohol test, parents can discover at a near-zero tolerance level (0.02%) if their kids have been drinking. The article describes one family’s regimen -

“After that first episode [when she tested postive on a Breathalyzer], Amanda had to blow into the Breathalyzer every time she returned to the family’s Johnsburg home in McHenry County—after a football game, after a movie, after a party. Now 19 and a freshman at college, Amanda credits her mother’s use of the Breathalyzer for her more mature attitude toward drinking.”

Amanda later describes the use of an alcohol test as in the long-run good for their family dynamic and for her habits. Local police Sgt. Scott Kristiansen points to the use of alcohol tests as a preventative tool, used by parents in order to ensure their teens’ alcohol abuse does not spiral out of control. Linda Lewaniak, the director of chemical dependency services at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital in Hoffman Estates, notes that the number of parents asking about administering breath tests and drug screens to their teens is increasing.

Considering that breathalyzers can cost hundreds of dollars, it is important to note that there is another very convenient and accurate way to alcohol test – disposable breath and saliva alcohol tests. For $29.95, you can buy a 10 pack of FDA Approved BreathScan tests that have been used by police departments, the Coast Guard, and the US Army for alcohol screening. For the same price, you can buy a 10 pack of saliva alcohol tests. Both work well in the case of alcohol, as they can tell you whether someone is under the influence right now. Purchase an alcohol test for saliva or breath at Home Health Testing’s secure and confidential online store here.

Minnesota has joined the University of Wisconsin in requiring attendees of its sports games to take an alcohol test before admission if they previously have had a drinking offense at the stadium.

The policy has its origins in stadium violence around the country, and particularly the University of Minnesota’s own problem with rowdiness:  a 2003 riot celebrating a national hockey championship win resulted in over $150,000 in damages.

The program, known as Check BAC, requires student season-ticket holders who had been previously ejected from a football game to go through a special gate for their alcohol test.  If they pass, they can enter the stadium, where the sale and possession of alcohol is banned.

The University of Wisconsin program is known as “Show and Blow,” and similarly requires a student who has been ejected from a game to pass an alcohol test.  The point of their program, said the Assistant Dean of Students Kipp Cox to the newspaper The Daily Cardinal, is to not only make the stadium safer, but to encourage students to come into the stadium earlier.  It’s a policy that Cox claims has improved the student section of the stadium.

The program has even received endorsements from students now involved in it, although they have reservations about certain aspects.  One student claimed they couldn’t find the breathalyzer stand.  Overall, it is a good policy though, according to another student who in 2008 needed to be breathalyzed to enter a game:  ”You don’t want to tell all your friends that you’ll try to find them in the stands later because you have to take a breathalyzer test.”

This is a policy that could be easily implemented with a disposable alcohol test like the Breathscan.  For those under the drinking age, an 0.02% (no tolerance) test is available; for those over 21, a 0.08% test can be administered (this is the cutoff level used by the University of Minnesota).

If you are interested in obtaining an alcohol test for your home, check out the selection of products at Home Health Testing.

Nor does the military want to lose one of its’ own.  That is why the military hands out Breathscan alcohol tests – in specially-made for the military keychains.  At Fort Benning, Georgia, officials handed out 100,000 of them in a year’s time.  They offer great endorsements of this alcohol test as a self-policing mechanism.  Staff Sgt. Tenesia Vann for example says of the tests, “If I go to a gathering where people are drinking, I want to be able to hand them out. I think they could be a deciding factor in convincing people not to get behind the wheel” (AP link here).  Master Sgt. James Smith says of the portable alcohol testing unit ”It’s a good way to not get into a confrontation with a buddy, in case they’ve been drinking…It’s impartial. It lets you say, ‘Hey, let’s let this be our guide.”‘

These military officials are so pleased with the test because if offers you quick results and is FDA approved.  The Breathscan comes in two versions at Home Health Testing – 0.02% and 0.08%.  0.02% represents a zero-tolerance level, while 0.08% will test to see if you are legally over the limit and impaired enough to receive a DUI – in any state.   Both tests have the same procedure.  Squeeze the middle of your alcohol test to safely break a glass tube and release the crystals that will indicate whether you are alcohol impaired.  Blow into the tube, lay it flat and wait for the results.  If the crystals remain a shade of yellow, the level of alcohol impairment is below that tested for by the Breathscan you have.  If the crystals turned blue or blue green then you are over the level of the test.

This is a simple and affordable aid to making responsible decisions about drinking, if only an aid.  You can purchase one of these tests or a saliva alcohol test at Home Health Testing.

Many people use the number of drinks as a guide to their impairment levels, and there are many charts that approximate impairement by referring to the alcohol content in wine v. beer, etc. But the quantity and type of drink consumed is by no means a scientific measurement of impairment or an accurate alcohol test.

What is a more accurate alcohol test is one based on sound principles – a test like the AlcoScreen or the Breathscan. The Breathscan is a portable breathalyzer you can take with you to determine if you are over the 0.02% BAC level (zero tolerance) or over the 0.08% BAC level (the federally mandated DUI level). Wait 15 minutes after your last drink, then blow into the tube and wait another 2 minutes to see how the colors of the crystals inside the alcohol test change.

Another excellent option is the AlcoScreen. This product also requires a 15 minute wait from the last instance of oral consumption (of food, drink, or breath mints) to use. After the wait, saturate the test pad with saliva which in 2 minutes will cause a color change (or no color change, if there is no alcohol in your system) that can tell you whether the BAC in your saliva is at .02%, .04%, .08%, or .30%. This test has been deemed over 95% accurate.

These quick and easy alcohol tests are affordable and available from Home Health Testing and are among the best ways to determine your actual level of impairment. Considering that in 2007 an estimated12,998 people died in alcohol-impaired traffic crashes, a portable alcohol test can have a significant role to play in terms of public safety and personal health.