Using cold medicines to get high
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About 5.3% of Americans ages 12 to 25, or 3.1 million people, have used a cold or cough medication to get high, a government survey found. About 1 million did so in the last year.
Procter & Gamble Co.’s NyQuil was the over-the-counter medicine most frequently chosen to achieve a high, at about 30%. Schering-Plough Corp.’s Coricidin was used by 18.1%, of the young people, and 17.8% of them cited Wyeth’s Robitussin, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
The survey was conducted and released by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Girls 12 to 17 were more likely than males to have misused the medicines, according to the study, while more males than females in the 18-to-25 age range reported abusing the substances.
Across the overall age group, whites were three times more likely to misuse the over-the-counter drugs than blacks.
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