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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – School’s out for summer and teens with extra time on their hands sometimes choose unhealthy and risky behaviors like alcohol, drug, or medicine abuse to fill the boredom.
Parents may monitor the bottles in their liquor cabinets or sniff for the scent of marijuana just to be cautious. Now, a new educational icon on the packaging of over-the-counter (OTC) cough medicine is asking parents to also pay close attention to what’s in their medicine cabinet.
“Not My Kid” – Don’t Be So Sure
Statistics show that cough medicine abuse can touch any family. A recent study from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America found that one in 10 teenagers has abused medicines containing dextromethorphan (DXM), the active ingredient in cough medicines, to get high, and 28 percent know someone who has tried it. While OTC cough medicines containing DXM are safe and effective when used as directed, they can be very dangerous when abused in extreme amounts—sometimes 25 to 50 times the recommended dose—to get high.
Coming to a Drugstore Near You
To educate parents on the potential for DXM abuse among teens, the leading makers of OTC cough medicines are introducing an educational icon on the packaging of OTC cough medicines containing DXM throughout 2009. The icon encourages parents to visit StopMedicineAbuse.org to learn how to:
Educate themselves on the issue
Talk to their teen about medicine abuse
Safeguard their medicine cabinet and take a regular inventory
Monitor their teen’s Internet use
Seek expert advice if they see signs of abuse
A Good Reason to Start a Discussion
Research has proven that children who report learning “a lot” about the dangers of drug abuse at home from their parents or a caring adult, are up to half as likely to abuse drugs, but many parents need help starting a discussion about medicine abuse. The new educational icon offers another opportunity to talk about the risks of drug abuse, including the dangers of cough medicine abuse.
Even if parents don’t think their children have abused or been exposed to cough medicine, they need to recognize that teens may be hearing about DXM abuse at school, seeing it online, and may be pressured to experiment by their peers. It’s important for teens to get the facts about the risks from their parents, not their friends. Parents can visit StopMedicineAbuse.org to learn more about the issue and how they can prevent it from happening in their family this summer and all year-round.
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