Last week, I was thrilled to discover that even teens are supporting the Five Moms Campaign! Justin A. Hinkley, a former cough medicine abuser and current blogger for The Counterculture Criteria, was forwarded an e-mail that I sent out about parents protecting their children from cough medicine abuse over the summer. Here is part of what Justin had to say:

I have some personal commentary to make on this, since I used to be one of the abusers Ms. Dyer is talking about. I watched a video on the Five Moms Web site, that had the voices of kids talking about how their parents had “no idea” that they were using cough medicine to trip, that they often did it in their bedrooms, right under their parents' noses… I'm all for personal liberties, but drugs are certainly not something that teens should be messing around with. They're not as uneducated as people think – we were fully aware back then that we were slowly killing ourselves – but we need to teach them to care about what they're doing to themselves, which is a very difficult platform to approach. Kids need to realize that the only way to get high off of this stuff is to overdose, and anyone who's spent even a brief time hanging out in drug cliques knows the awful meaning of that word. I'm in no position to tell anybody what they should or shouldn't do, but parents are, and parents need to be aware of this stuff. If my mom had known what I was up to sooner… Well, it probably wouldn't have stopped me, but maybe, and I could've saved myself a lot of heartache and agony.

Justin is absolutely right. Cough medicine abuse is dangerous. Parents need to know what is happening so they can protect their kids. Thanks, Justin, I hope every parent will take your words to heart. Click here to read Justin's full post.