Protecting your children from prescription, and OTC drug abuse

Protecting your children from prescription drug abuse is extremely important these days with 1 in 5 teens abusing them, so it is important to take precautionary measures, and you can start from home on this one.

The medicine cabinet is the first place you will want to go because teen drug abuse often starts there.

With prescription drug abuse a major problem with teens today, it is essential that you follow 3 steps. After reading them, and more importantly, implementing them, you will realize just how much common sense they make.

• Monitor medication – Keep track of all your prescription medications, including refills for all family members. 19% of all teens have abused prescription drugs and there is no guarantee that it won’t happen in your family. By keeping track of your medications and the family’s, you could spot trouble if pills start disappearing. Monitoring your teen’s medication is also included here. It is also important to make friends and relatives aware of the risks and motivate them to watch their own medications because chances are your teen will be over at their houses and have access to the medicine cabinet.

• Secure medication– Close to 2/3rds of teens who have abused painkillers, got them from friends and/or relatives. (usually without their knowledge) If you had a pistol or some kind of firearm, you would take extra precaution in securing them to avoid a horrible accident. Locking up your prescription drugs, or hiding them, is the same as securing your firearms. Drugs have the same potential for harm as guns do because they can kill or maim as well. Ask friends and relatives to secure their medications also. The problem just isn’t in your household, and is it really that difficult, or hassle to secure the medications?

• Dispose of medication – Drugs that are no longer used by anyone in the household are a prime target for a savvy teen not wanting to shake the tree by getting caught nipping at a few of the pills. Swiping a few, or even the whole bottle, wouldn’t be out of the question because no one is bothering to monitor these medications anyway. Often, some of these drugs are kept for rainy days by adults in case that “pain” pops up again. Take an inventory of all medications, and discard any that are not being used, and/or expired. If there are any refills remaining on any of these unused drugs, no one will be able to use it because you will have thrown them out. When you do discard them, mix them with a substance that ruins the medication because teens will go back into the garbage to get them out. (Information from Partnership for a Drug Free America)

As well as keeping track of your prescription drugs, and throwing out old ones, you must also take notice, and track over-the counter medications such as cold, and cough preparations containing DXM, or dextromethorphan, like Robitussin DX.

Some OTC medicines containing DXM include: Robitussin Cough & Chest Congestion from New York-based Pfizer; Tylenol Cough & Sore Throat from New Brunswick, New Jersey-based J&J; and Vicks NyQuil Cough from Cincinnati-based P&G, among others, according to bloomberg.com.

The drug, and ease this medicine can be obtained makes it popular for tweens, and teens to get high on, or as it's called on the street, "Robo-tripping" and "Skittling." Products containing DXM are also called Skittles, Triple C's, and Red Devils.

"The signs of DXM abuse include confusion, impaired judgment, blurred vision, dizziness, paranoia, excessive sweating, slurred speech, seizures, fever, and nausea and vomiting. In some cases, overdoses and deaths have occurred when caregivers have given cough or cold medications containing DXM to very small children in inappropriate large doses," stated rxlist.com.

Non-medical use of DXM is so bad the Food and Drug Administration is considering making the preparations containing the chemical a controlled substance requiring a prescription from a doctor to get it.

In 2008 alone there were close to 8000 ER visits due to abuse of this medication, an increase of about 3600 from 2004. (bloomberg.com)

However, following the above steps may save you one day from driving down to the morgue to identify one of your children, or spend yers in grief, pain, anguish, and/or misery, dealing with substance abuse problems with either prescription drugs, OTC medicines, street drugs such as heroin, or cocaine, others, and sometimes all of them.

National Prescription Drug Threat Assessment 2009 here

This is one of those small things you can do having the potential to ward off huge, and horrific problems both immediately, and in the long run for your children, as well as the entire family.

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If you or a loved one needs help with any type of drug abuse/addiction problem, contact these sites depending on where you live. SEMCA (Wayne County residents), CARE (Macomb County residents), PACE (Oakland County residents), Drug Free Detroit (City of Detroit residents). For those residing outside the State of Michigan, contact SAMHSA for assistance. For assistance with medical marijuana contact The Michigan Medical Marijuana Association,  Michigan Medical Marijuana Certification Center. or greentreesdetroit.com, phone number: (313) 967-9999, or (248) 677-2888.