MAPTalk-Digest Tuesday, December 14 2004 Volume 04 : Number 222
001 Medical marijuana: The real stakes
From: Herb <>
002 Chong still doing doper role
From: Herb <>
003 Afghanistan declares ‘holy war’ against opium trade
From: Herb <>
004 New 'Drug' Testing Method
From: Thomas J Hillgardner <>
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Subj: 001 Medical marijuana: The real stakes
From: Herb <>
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 06:30:42 -0800
Medical marijuana: The real stakes
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jeffjacoby/jj20041210.shtml
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Subj: 002 Chong still doing doper role
From: Herb <>
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 07:08:32 -0800
Chong still doing doper role
http://www.louisvillescene.com/2004/12/10/arts_chong.html
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Subj: 003 Afghanistan declares ‘holy war’ against opium trade
From: Herb <>
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 07:11:23 -0800
Afghanistan declares 'holy war' against opium trade
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.a
note Reader's Comment
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Subj: 004 New 'Drug' Testing Method
From: Thomas J Hillgardner <>
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 13:14:09 -0800
SOURCE:WallSt.net Weekly Hotstock Bulletin
Employment drug-screening methods are undergoing a paradigm shift,
according to Peter Phildius, CEO of Avitar, Inc. (AMEX: AVR), a company
that manufactures and markets its proprietary oral fluid diagnostic tests
for drug testing, among other applications. “We developed a state of the
art, instant, oral fluid drug test that can have a huge impact on the way
drug testing is done today,” said Phildius. “The market is 95 percent all
urine, laboratory-based testing, which takes four days to get results and
can easily be adulterated.”
An oral fluid diagnostic test is “as simple as putting a collecting
device in your mouth, taking it out, applying it to a diagnostic test and
getting results in between 5 and 15 minutes.” Avitar's solution also
touts savings for potential clients. “The value of this opportunity is
that when we do a test over the standard lab urine test, we can save each
corporation $50 to $75 per-test,” said Phildius. “This is significant
because companies like Walmart would do one million tests a year. That's
a significant saving.” Phildius is hoping that Avitar can gain between
one and five percent of the $1.1 billion to $1.5 billion drug diagnostic
market within the next two years. He added that “oral fluid diagnostics
lends itself to other disease testing like influenza or glucose
monitoring, and we plan to pursue that down the road after we become
profitable over the next one to two years.” In the “very near future,”
Avitar will announce a new product that “greatly simplifies the way
instant oral fluid testing is done, “ said Phildius. “Currently all tests
are done by collecting oral fluid and then transferring it to what we
call an ICON, and allowing the diagnosis to develop in a very short
period of time. We will be releasing a product that works like a
thermometer. You put it in your mouth, take it out and look at a reading.
It's a one-step process. The more user friendly we can make our products
for the market, the more the market will expand. We will also be
expanding ourselves internationally in the next 12 months, and I think
you'll see some indication of that through press releases in let's say 6
to 9 months.” The company is also looking to market a methodology for
random testing that it developed with a Fortune 100 company, “which
greatly reduces the amount of drug uses of an employee base.” Typically,
companies will have a 7 percent to 10 percent rate of drug usage amon g
their employees, who were typically given pre-employment drug tests.
Avitar tested the product and found that a company with a 7 percent usage
rate using pre-employment screening only recorded 0.9 percent usage under
Avitar's random testing product. “It then becomes a deterrent as opposed
to a screen,” said Phildius. “This is very significant because it's a
$110 billion cost to corporations today. The head of GM recently stated
that they felt that they had a $1 billion loss in their corporation due
to drug users on the payroll. The economic savings that drop into the
bottom line are going to be significant.” Shares of AVR hover around
$0.13.
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Thomas J. Hillgardner, Esq.
82-63 170th Street
Jamaica, New York 11432-2035
(718) 657-0606
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End of MAPTalk-Digest V04 #222
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