Here’s an article from Health News Digest that you definitely should read. The article shares statistics about kids who use prescription and nonprescription drugs to get high. Even though this article focuses on prescription abuse, it does have a lot of great tips to help prevent the general behavior of medicine abuse, including cough medicine abuse. There was one statistic in particular that I think every parent should see:

Studies show that parents could possibly cut the likelihood of their teens using drugs in half just by talking to their kids. However, only 31 percent of teens report that they learn a lot about the risk of drugs from their parents, according to another study.

If all of us commit to talking with our kids about the dangers of cough medicine abuse and telling other parents to do the same we can make a difference. If we raise that 31 percent of teens who learn about the risk of drugs, we will decrease the kids who are taking part in this dangerous habit.