Phoenix (WSYR-TV) - When was the last time you checked your medicine cabinet? Do you know how many bottles are on the shelf, and how many pills are in each bottle?
Maybe you're confident you don't have to worry about your own kid abusing prescription drugs, but are you just as confident about their friends when they visit your house?
Based on some very recent cases, police say parents still aren't doing enough to prevent teens from abusing their own medicines. They can take action, at home, starting with their own medicine cabinet.
Phoenix police recently found some pills in the locker of a high school junior. Police say his asking price was $3 a pill. The source of his supply? His mother's medicine cabinet.
“He just took them from home and brought them to school. That's what we're dealing with a lot -- kids that are bringing drugs from home and either giving them to their friends or selling them to their friends,” says Phoenix Police Chief Rod Carr.
While it's difficult to place a hard number or percentage on how many local students are abusing prescription drugs, small, tight-knit communities like Phoenix are finding out they're not immune to problems plaguing big city schools.
Teens raiding their parents' medicine cabinets for doctor-prescribed drugs is a nationwide problem, but unlike other communities, Phoenix has taken a unique approach to help parents find out if their kids need help: Free drug testing kits are available at the Medicine Place pharmacy for any parent in the Phoenix School District.
They've given away 75 kits since spring.
Word about this program is growing. When the president of the company that makes the drug testing kit heard about it, he called from Tampa, Florida to donate 30 of his drug testing kits.
They come in a box that sticks to your refrigerator, to serve as a constant reminder to your teen.
“We know, and the mayor knows, this isn't the answer to the drug problem. It's due diligence on the village's part to address a problem that seems to be growing, not only here, but all over the country,” Carr says.
And there's continued evidence of the need to educate teens and parents on the dangers of prescription drug abuse.
Thanks to a $250 personal donation from Town Councilor Dick Kline, the village will be purchasing additional drug testing kits to give away to any parent in the school district.
Back in April, a Phoenix High School student suffered seizures after taking prescription pills given to her by a classmate.
