Are we winning the war on drugs? The answer is yes, if you mean “illegal” drug use by teens. On the other hand, the answer is a resounding NO! if you mean this:
A new drug of choice for teens has many medical experts on edge.
These drugs are so easy to get because many of them are sitting in medicine cabinets across the country.
The good news is research shows that these days less teens are abusing illegal drugs and alcohol.
The bad news is a recent study released by the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows that more and more teens are using over the counter medicines to get high.
“I think there’s a lot more than what are being reported to us,” said Dr. Chris Holstege, Medical Director at the UVa Health System.
The numbers show the greatest increase in the abuse of cold and cough medicine.
You see, cough medications typically contain dextromethorphan, which not only supresses the cough reflex, but in large enough doses sends you on a trip the likes to which some of these kids parents might have flashbacks:
Teens use these drugs because they have a high similar to the one you would get from using LSD.
“But, it also has adverse affects, such as serotonin syndrome, a thing that can cause you to be hypertensive and cause your blood pressure to get too high,” said Holstege.
The results showed that one in every fourteen high school seniors said they used cold medicines “fairly recently” to get high.
Most of these medicines are made with Dextromathorphan, or DXM.
I’ve been hearing about DXM use for some time now. It just goes to show, the more you supress something, the more people find ways around that suppression. And frankly, I’d rather have my kids smoking a joint than doing “Dex” or DMX any day of the week.
