"600 Words by Esther J. Cepeda"
My great thanks to all who sent me well wishes for a speedy recovery over the last two weeks. It sure wasn’t speedy but at least I’m now 90 percent functional.
Your outpourings of affection, suggestions for home remedies – "honey and hot water with the whiskey optional" was a favorite – and vivid descriptions of personal maladies were touching. The warnings were surprising and I’ll share the most shocking one: beware of the cough medicine lurking in your medicine cabinet!
There’s nothing quite like coming to the realization that the dark little bottle of magical elixir that holds your only ticket to getting through your work day – or getting your kids through their school day – can be as dangerous as an unsupervised fifth of Courvoisier.
A well-meaning email from my new pals at www.fivemoms.com asked me to inform you about a real concern that should put you on notice if you tend to keep a few bottles of ‘ol reliable in your medicine cabinet: kids are sucking down cough syrup, bypassing decongestion and going straight to inebriation.
"When I heard about this I couldn’t believe it, I thought I’d seen everything," Hilda Morales, a bilingual educator in San Antonio Texas who is the Latino face of the Five Moms campaign, told me over the phone. "What’s scary about it is that people don’t know about it and it’s so common, especially with how many people keep cough medicine in their homes."
A 2005 report published by Partnership for a Drug-Free America showed that
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Abuse of Rx/OTC medicines is now so prevalent it is "normalized" among teens.§
One in 10 (10 percent, or 2.4 million) report abusing cough medicine to get high.§
More than half of teens (55 percent, or 13 million) didn’t agree strongly that using cough medicines to get high is risky.Ugh.
The Hispanic statistics (at the time of the report there were 2.8 million U.S. Latino teens in grades 7 – 12) were no less alarming:
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One in eight (13 percent) or 352,000 Hispanic teens report abusing cough medicine to get high·
Only 36 percent of Hispanic teens "learn a lot about the risk of drugs" from their parents§
61 percent of Hispanic teens didn’t agree strongly that "taking cough medicine to get high is risky""With cough medicine what we’re seeing is a trend that kids are starting at middle school, and when we interviewed high school and college educators they said they had actually heard of it and some even said they themselves had done it in college," Hilda said.
In the Latino community it’s not so much the alone-after-school boredom that gives cabinet-snooping kids the opportunity to imbibe as much as it is the big family parties coupled with a population accustomed to having stores of medication at home (in many Latin American countries you need no prescriptions to buy pain killers or antibiotics – you can just pick them up at your corner drug store).
"I was at a PTA meeting two months ago campaigning and these moms, they could not believe it. They said ‘What are you talking about? We buy three bottles at Wal-Mart so we don’t run out!’" Hilda said.
"I told them that’s fine, but you can’t just have it out, you have to keep it safe, especially when you’re home," she said, "When your comadres and tias and abuelitas are over and we’re having a good time the kids are having their own party."
Ouch! Who knew the Sabado Gigante marathon could be so treacherous?
"I’m really concerned about this," Hilda said. "I didn’t know this was another thing for us to worry about, I thought cough medicine abuse was more in Caucasian families. I was always thinking that as Hispanics, we’re so nosy, we’re always looking in our kids things, checking friends, and looking in the rooms…but no – this has no boundaries. There’s no racism, cough medicine abuse it’s all the way across."
Well, I can certainly vouch for the loving hyper-vigilance of an ultra-nosy Hispanic mom but, clearly, if you come in contact with teens – regardless of their ethnicity – pay attention to signs like dizziness, weird behavior, over-sleepiness, and empty bottles in the trash. Just be aware.
"We’re not saying do not buy cough medicine, it helps us with our colds," Hilda said after rattling off a chilling list of cough medicine OD dangers including heart palpitations, drugged driving and serious addiction. "I tell moms, sisters, cousins: ‘Just take care of it just as if it was alcohol; put it under lock and key."
Esther J. Cepeda writes the "600 Words" & "Pregunta del Dia" columns, and is also the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. Her views and reporting do not necessarily reflect those of ISAC. "600 words" is a registered trademark of EeJayCee, Inc., Copyright 2008. May be reprinted with permission, contact eejaycee@600words.com
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