By Buck Wolf

Oct. 26, 2000 — Kenneth Curtis is best known as “The Pee Peddler,” and he’s gone to the South Carolina Supreme Court to defend his reputation.

Curtis sells urine — his own clean, unadulterated urine — to nervous prospective employees who must face a dreaded drug test.

Shelling out $69 for 150 milliliters of frozen urine might seem exorbitant. But this is value-added, pre-tested pee, certified to be drug-free by one of the country’s largest private labs. And it comes in an easy-to-conceal, strap-on vinyl pouch that dispenses from your crotch.

“This is really foolproof. Even if you are observed, you can use our kit in a natural urinating position and they won’t catch you,” Curtis says. “And that goes for women as well as men.”

But last year, South Carolina became the first state to ban the sale of human urine if it is used to undermine drug testing. “You operate heavy machinery, you drive kids to school, you shouldn’t be able to skirt the drug-testing laws,” says state Sen. David Thomas, who helped write the law Curtis is now challenging.

Curtis argues that the law is unfairly directed at him and is a violation of his constitutional rights. He contends that he’s also protecting the privacy of his clients, because urine tests can be used for more than detecting drug use.

“They say they test for illegal drugs,” says Curtis, of Marietta, S.C. “But I’m afraid these tests are being used to keep pregnant women, cigarette smokers and users of prescription medicine from gainful employment.”

South Carolina judges should rule on this matter in the next few weeks. But Curtis is vowing, no matter what, to stay in business. “I sometimes think there’s going to be a big raid,” he says. “And the cops are going to beat down my door, open my freezer, and haul away all my frozen pee.

“To them, it is just urine, to me it is liquid gold.”