Help Stop Medicine Abuse!
October is National Medicine Abuse Awareness Month.
Medicine abuse is our nation’s fastest-growing drug problem. Twenty percent of teens say they
have recreationally taken a prescription drug without having a prescription for it themselves, and
5 percent of teens reports abusing over-the-counter (OTC) cough medicine to get “high.” This
behavior cuts across geographic, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries. Teens report
getting many of these medicines from home medicine cabinets and mistakenly believe that
abusing them is “safer” than other drugs.
Is teen abuse of cough medicine on your radar screen? Available over-the-counter without a
doctor’s prescription, it is easily available to teens but parents, educators and law enforcement
personnel are often unaware of teen use of cough medicines for non-medical purposes. Get
educated about this issue during National Medicine Abuse Awareness Month in October. The
involvement of parents, educators, law enforcement, the D.A.R.E. community and other
community leaders can help curb teen medicine abuse!
Why cough medicine?
While millions of Americans responsibly rely on cough medicine to relieve cough, some teens
intentionally take excessive amounts – sometimes more than 25 times the recommended dose
of these medicines – to get “high.” This means some teens ingest multiple packages or bottles
of cough medicines!
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The active ingredient in these cough medicine is dextromethorphan (DXM) – a common
cough suppressant ingredient in more than 100 nonprescription cough syrups, tablets,
and gel caps like Coricidin, Robitussin and Dayquil/Nyquil, as well as store brand and
generic versions of these products.
When taken in excessive amounts, DXM can cause serious side effects including rapid
heartbeat, high blood pressure, memory problems, nausea and vomiting. When
combined with other medicines or drugs, cough medicine abuse can become deadly.
Help Stop Medicine Abuse with Videos, Facebook & Social Media
The Consumer Healthcare Product Association’s (CHPA) Stop Medicine Abuse campaign
reaches millions of parents each year via its www.StopMedicineAbuse.org website and blog,
Facebook community page and Twitter feed. Please join our communities and add your voice to
our conversations with parents! CHPA also partnered with D.A.R.E. America to create the
“Helping Communities Respond to Rx and OTC Abuse” curricula for students.
This year, CHPA launched a social media campaign aimed at reaching teens who are “likely
triers” looking online for information about DXM. Teen DXM abusers often post videos of
themselves high, share cough medicine “recipes” and trade stories. We developed a campaign
that looked and felt like this user-generated content, but discouraged - rather than encouraged –
DXM abuse.
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Research shows that while teens may not be dissuaded from abusing cough medicine by the
“dangerous side effects,” they can be dissuaded based on concerns about vomiting or being
disapproved of by their friends. CHPA’s online campaign brings the dangers of cough medicine
abuse to life and demonstrates the social disapproval from friends that can accompany this
behavior.
Please feel free to use the following multi-media videos in your work with teens:
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Via a new Facebook app targeting to teens who “like” drugs and “getting high” on their
Facebook pages, teens get a personal, first-hand experience of the most common side
effect of DXM abuse (throwing up in front of friends) and the social backlash (being
disapproved of by your friends).
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The campaign also launched a series of YouTube videos that look and feel like the usergenerated content that many teens post about getting high from cough medicine. The
start of the videos feel like other teen-posted content, but the end graphically illustrates
the physical side effects (ie, vomiting) of abuse. See videos here, here and here.
Resources for DARE Officers:
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Become familiar with the common slang terms that teens use when talking about
abusing cough medicines.
Order free educational brochures for your school community.
Download template presentations and information for law enforcement and
community leaders at www.StopMedicineAbuse.org
Visit new Medicine Abuse Project resources and curricula for law enforcement
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