Cold medicines, prescription pills drugs of choice
A local 15-year-old girl claims drugs are readily available to Bonners Ferry's teens.
Whether it's marijuana, cocaine, meth, cold medicines or prescriptions drugs, they're out there and kids are using them.
“People take a lot of cough medicines and prescription drugs, just to get messed up,” said the girl, who wished not to give her name out of fear of retribution. “It is stupid. Kids don't know what it can do to you.”
“At parties, kids are doing coke and smoking weed,” she continued. “They are sometimes doing crystal meth. They do a lot of methadone, oxycontin and ecstasy. Ecstasy is a big thing.”
While the teen shared her story about what she hears and sees, Cpl. Dave Schuman, a narcotics detective with Boundary County Sheriff's Department, told his.
“I think it is because it is socially acceptable. A doctor is prescribing it to you,” he said about the abuse of prescription pills. “They don't feel like they are breaking a law. It seems to be the common attitude.”
Schuman has seen many cases with prescription pills. Some include people going to 40 different doctors with the same aliment to get pills.
“A lot of people don't view it as a drug,” he said. “A doctor gave it to them so it's okay. They end up getting hooked like any other drug. If a doctor stops the prescription, they are still hooked and they get it in other ways.”
The Bonners Ferry High School staff asks that all prescriptions be checked into the office.
“According to the kids and the parents, that is the number one problem at the high school,” said high school principal Curt Randall-Bayer. “We are a reflection of the town. The problem is that drug dogs don't pick up prescriptions.”
Randall-Bayer is also hearing more about teens using over-the-counter cold, flu and cough medicines.
One of the main cold medicines being abused is Coricidin cough and cold or “triple c.”
The high school is taking a three-prong attack on the drug problem. Randall-Bayer, along with the school's staff, is looking at doing random drug testing for athletes and having police doing more checking with the drug dog, and using Idaho Drug Free Youth program to inform teens of the consequences of the drugs.
“I don't think the students realize the long-term consequences of their choices,” he said. “Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. As an adult or a child, it doesn't make a difference.”
Recent national studies show that the sharpest increase of users of prescription drugs for non-medical purposes occur in the 12- to 25-year-age group.
“Parents need to watch for mood swings, typical parenting type stuff,” Schuman said. “You never know. Sometimes these kids are very excitable. It's just a parent needing to pay attention and not brush it off.”