More than three in five teenagers say that prescription drugs are easy to get from their parent’s medicine cabinets according to a report done by the office of National Drug control. One in four grandparents say that they leave medications in places that gives children and teenagers easy access. According to the Partnership at Drugfree.org, two thirds of teens who abuse prescription drugs get them from friends, family and acquaintances. With the growing problem of teenagers abusing and misusing prescription drugs, it is important that we find ways to safeguard our medications, and make sure that grandparents and other caregivers are doing the same.
The first step is to monitor your own prescriptions and over the counter medications. You should be aware of how many pills you have left in your bottles and also how many refills you have available. If you seem to be refilling your prescriptions more often than normal, this could be indicative of a problem. If your teenager is on any medications, you should be the one to control the medications, monitor the doses yourself and also keep track of the available refills. You should also keep all your medications, both prescription and over the counter locked in a safe place. Take note of the amount of cold and cough medications you have and how full the bottles are. Keep an eye out for empty cold and cough medicine bottles in your teenager’s room and backpack.
It is also important to dispose of any expired or not needed medications safely. Teens with an addiction will go through the trash and pull out medications that are expired and use them. Try to clean out your medicine cabinet when your teenager is not home and also mix any unused medications with an undesirable substance like coffee grounds before you throw them away. To prevent any unauthorized refills, you should also mark out any personal information on the prescription bottles before you throw them away.
It is important to communicate with your teenager. Keeping an eye out for unusual behavior and safeguarding your medications can go a long way in helping to prevent teenage drug abuse. Making grandparents and other caregivers aware of the risks of easy access to medications is also helpful, and if you see something that points to drug abuse, don’t ignore the problem.