3 Million People Have Used Non-Prescription Cough And Cold Medicines To Get High At Least Once In Their Lifetimes

Continued abuse of over the counter medications - cough medicine in particular...I would think the digestive track wouldn't be too happy either with a large ingestion of such products..BD

Patterns of misuse of non-prescription drugs varied among demographic groups. Females aged 12 to 17 were more likely than their male counterparts to have misused these drugs within the past year (2.3 percent vs. 1.5 percent). But among those aged 18 to 25, more males had misused these drugs in the past year than females (1.8 percent vs. 1.3 percent). Among all persons aged 12 to 25, the rate of past year misuse among whites (2.1 percent) was three times higher than among blacks (0.6 percent) and significantly higher than among Hispanics (1.4 percent).
"While increasing attention has been paid to the public health risk of prescription drug abuse, we also need to be aware of the growing dangers of misuse of over-the-counter cough and cold medications, especially among young people," said SAMHSA Administrator Terry Cline, Ph.D. "The scope and danger posed by these medications requires a broad scale public health campaign - a campaign involving everyone, including the medical community, industry, parents and young people."