Kids to Be Cut Off from Buying Cold Meds

In history, people have turned to many means to get their "high" Some people buy drugs illegally, some others sniff certain substance, and others find other means. However, a fad as of lately is to buy legal drugs and using them to get their high, mainly off such cold-medicine products as Vicks,Robitussin, Delsym, and many, many more well known products someone can easily buy "over the counter".

However, in this situation, the officials of Suffolk County, Long Island are taking action. Officials of Suffolk County would like to ban the sales of the cold-medicines that are abused for their "highs" to minors.

The drug in these cold-medicines that is abused to get that "high" is known as dextromethorphan. Dextromethorphan is an antitussive drug, which helps supress one's feeling of having to cough, rendering dextromethorphan a cough suppressant.

Tom Hendrick, the founding director of The Partnership for a Drug-Free America was happy about the possible ban, applauding Suffolk Counties officials decision to impose a ban.

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America conducted a study. This study estimated that about 2.4 million teenagers, about 1 in 10, got this "high" from abusing these over over-the-counter cold-medicines and cough suppressants. In 2006 there was 76 cases of teens having to be treated for abuse of the dextromethorphan drug, which is almost five times more than the cases in the year 2000.

Dextromethorphan drugs are very appealing to teenagers due to its relatively low cost, and easy accessability.

Arlene Sanchez, Nassau's commissioner of mental health had this disturbing statement about the situation at hand:

"If they're doing Robitussin or any over-the-counter medications, there is a very good chance they're doing Vicodin heroin and heavier narcotics."

I am assuming that over-the-counter abuse is now another "gateway drug", meaning that abuse to get a "high" off of these drugs makes other drugs, heavier drugs, more appealing to try to teenagers. Easy accessability and low cost of these over-the-counter drugs just enhances the appeal to teenagers. Also, the legality of these drug sales to minors gives them an additional safety net as to why they should try it "just once", which actually leads to more and more tries, which then leads to heavy addictions in the teenagers.

The amount of emergency room visits from teenagers due to these drugs are still at an unacceptable rate. Imposing these laws banning the sales of over-the-counter sales that contain dextromethorphan should lower the amount of emergency room visits since the legality safety net will no longer be there, and accessability will be severely limited to teenagers in most cases.

The charges for selling these cold-medicines to minors would be $500 for their first offense, and $750 for each additional offense.

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