National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse

Education

• Educate yourself! Check out the various resources on this site and others to learn as much as you can about the dangers of prescription drugs and how to keep your children and other family members safe from adverse impacts.

• Share the information you’ve learned about prescription drugs with your children. Start discussing medication safety as young as elementary school and teach children not to take medicine from anyone other than a parent, medical provider, or other trusted adults. By middle school, begin discussing the reality of prescription drug dangers, such as addiction and overdose death, and the importance of not mixing medications or alcohol. 

• Talk to your child about the extreme dangers of “Pharm” or “Skittles” parties as early as middle school. At these parties, a container such as a bowl or a jar is passed around that includes a mixture of all of the medications the party-goers were able to “score” from friends, family, or whatever medicine cabinets they have been able to access. Alcohol is typically involved, too, which can make this activity even deadlier. No one has any idea what they’re taking- and neither does the ER when things go wrong!

• Discuss the danger of recreationally using street drugs of any sort, as they may be tainted with fentanyl, an illegal and highly potent version of legal pharmaceutical-grade fentanyl. Illegally manufactured fentanyl is showing up in cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and even marijuana. Fentanyl can be mixed with these other drugs, or it may show up in the form of ‘fake’ pills that appear to be drugs such as Xanax, Norco, Vicodin, etc. The use of any street drug could be potentially deadly, and ingesting any amount of fentanyl increases the risk of overdose substantially. 

• All middle school, high school, and college students need to know how to respond when a friend is in trouble. Teach your children what the signs of overdose are and how to respond. Check to see if your state has passed a Good Samaritan Law that provides some level of immunity to those who call 911 to report an overdose. Share this information with your child and make sure they know how important it is to report what they believe is an overdose. Explain to them that this is a matter of life and death, as there is typically a window of opportunity to save a life if that call is made early enough in the overdose.