A recent article in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review shows just how widespread the problem of cough medicine abuse is: nine Pine-Richland High School students were found high on cough medicine while at school. Five of them were taken to the hospital. This problem – sadly – is everywhere, and cough medicine abuse is more prevalent than most parents think. We have to take action to stop this. And the only way to stop cough medicine abuse is to teach parents and teens about the dangers of taking cough medicine to get high. If only I had known more about this kind of abuse, maybe I wouldn’t have had to learn about it the hard way. I don’t want parents to experience what I did, and the only way to prevent that from happening is to educate parents across the country and urge them to share this important information with others.