by Mark Frankel

About the author: Mark Frankel is a writer for Newsweek International in New York City.

With no sign that drug use is waning, a Massachusetts company is promising to provide a quick fix for those who think rigorous monitoring is an answer. The Psychemedics Corporation of Cambridge has begun selling anxious parents a no-muss, no-fuss way to test their kids for drug use without ever leaving their home.

Playing on Parents’ Fear

Introduced in July 1995, the firm’s PDT-90 Personal Drug Testing Service was unveiled with a fear-mongering newspaper ad headlined “An Open Letter to the Parents of America,” which deftly played upon parental dread (“Even if you do everything right, your child might still try drugs. A third of eighth graders in the U.S...