Drink cough syrup for a pick-me-up? Taking diabetes pills to lose weight? Beware of substance abuse harming teens

18-year-old Xiaoyan studied at a secondary school in the northeast, and among Xiaoyan's classmates, it was popular to buy a cough syrup
.
"I had some insomnia and bought this medicine
.
" Xiaoyan said that some students did not have insomnia and would buy it to drink
.

The situation reported by Xiao Rock is not uncommon
among some teenagers.
A small number of adolescents repeatedly use a large number of dependent drugs for non-medical purposes, and some even use cough syrup as a refreshing drink, which seriously threatens their physical and mental health and safety
.

Drug abuse tends to spread

"Some cough syrups contain trace amounts of codeine and ephedrine, which can stimulate the central nervous system, play a sedative and analgesic effect, mainly used for cough, but a large amount of long-term use is easy to lead to addiction and dependence
.
" Zhang Jingyi, director of the clinical pharmacy department of Shenyang North Theater General Hospital, said that in recent years, the number of young people who come to the hospital to buy such drugs has shown an increasing trend, especially high school students and college students
.
She once met a senior in high school who had more than 10 bottles of 250 ml cough syrup in his school bag and drank
the syrup as a refreshing drink.

Xu Jie, director of the Department of Drug Rehabilitation and Treatment of Beijing High-tech Hospital, said that in 2017, the department admitted more than 50 patients with a cough syrup addiction, more than 100 in 2018, and exceeded 400 in 2021, of which more than two-thirds of the cases were abused for non-medical purposes, and the one-year reuse rate was as high as 89%.

In 2021, during an investigation of a public interest litigation case, the Huzhou City procuratorate in Zhejiang Province tracked down 89 people
who abused a cough syrup across the city.

"At present, 30%~40% of patients in the substance addiction clinic have depression and anxiety problems, and about 50% of patients with depression and anxiety have substance abuse, including drug abuse
.
If antidepressants are mixed with certain cough syrups, irreversible damage to the body can occur and cause more serious conditions
.
Sun Jijun, deputy chief physician of the Department of Substance Dependence of the Mental Health Center affiliated to Zhejiang University School of Medicine, said that in addition to cough and pain medications, a drug originally used for diabetes treatment is also used as a diet drug
for some adolescents.

Liu Hao, deputy chief physician of the Hubei Provincial Mental Health Center and the Mental Health Center of Wuhan University People's Hospital, said that adolescent patients with drug dependence admitted clinically often encounter difficulties in life, such as poor family relationships, unhealthy campus and social relationships, etc.
, and are more depressed, depressed and anxious mentally, so they turn to drugs
.
In addition, groups of adolescents tend to emulate each other, and the drug abuse behavior of individuals is easy to spread
.

"Adolescents are in a critical period of physical and mental growth, once they form dependence on some drugs, clinically they will show mental symptoms such as depression, anxiety, hallucinations, etc.
, and will also reduce the basic physiological demands of adolescents such as appetite and sleep, resulting in malnutrition and slow development, and physical and mental problems such as
reduced reaction speed, memory loss, and personality changes.
" Liu Hao said that acute poisoning caused by drug abuse may even endanger the lives of
teenagers.

There are gaps in prescription drug management

At present, China has 121 narcotic drugs, 154 psychotropic substances and 174 non-medicinal narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances
under its control.
Related drugs are strictly regulated
.
However, some cough and pain drugs are not currently included in the scope of supervision, so adolescents have the conditions to buy
them in large quantities.

In December 2021, the National Medical Products Administration converted a cough syrup from an over-the-counter drug to a prescription drug
.
However, in the interview, the reporter found that there are still loopholes in the current management of prescription drugs, and some teenagers buy the drug
in large quantities without prescription through offline or online pharmacies.

Xiaoyan said that he suffers from chronic pneumonia, often needs to buy antibiotics online, a big box to buy, each purchase has no quantitative limit, only need to fill in his ID number, register medical history
.

Half moon talk reporter on the online drug sales platform to consult how to buy 100 boxes of a cough syrup, customer service said that the purchase of such drugs need to register, each order 5 boxes, 20 consecutive purchases can be
.
When the reporter went to a pharmacy in Hunnan District, Shenyang City, and named several prescription drugs, the salesman only asked for registration, and did not ask whether he had a prescription
from a hospital or doctor.

Wang Heqiu, chief physician of the Zhejiang Provincial Mental Health Center, said that the grasp of the abuse of medical drugs, in addition to relying on law enforcement agencies, relies heavily on the data reported by medical institutions, but now many teenagers hide their conditions and do not go to the hospital at all, and families do not
pay enough attention to their mental health problems.
It is estimated that the actual drug abuse situation may be heavier than the data
available to medical institutions.

To solve drug abuse, it is necessary to "manage drugs" + "transform people"

According to the experts interviewed, China has established a drug abuse monitoring system covering the whole country, and pays attention to potential new drugs and drugs
of abuse through grassroots "sentinel points" such as psychiatric hospitals and general hospitals.

Shi Jie, executive deputy director of the China Institute of Drug Dependence at Peking University, believes that psychoactive medical drugs should be strengthened from the moment they are marketed, timely detection of abuse, and at the same time, based on the current situation of widespread use of Internet transactions, strengthen network supervision
.

For the online sales of prescription drugs, the Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Online Sales of Pharmaceuticals, which came into effect on December 1, 2022, clearly require that the online sales of prescription drugs implement a real-name system, and before passing the prescription review, information such as instructions must not be displayed, and services related to the purchase of prescription drugs must not be provided, and the relevant responsibilities
of drug business entities and third-party sales platforms are required to be implemented.

Sun Jijun suggested that a more complete real-time, efficient, online and offline dynamic monitoring and early warning system should be established, and comprehensive monitoring and monitoring of key groups should go hand in hand, so as to detect and grasp new substances of abuse and their extent in real time, and control
them as soon as possible.

A number of front-line doctors and professionals involved in the treatment of adolescent drug abuse also called for the core of drug abuse prevention and treatment to be "people" rather than "drugs", so as to reverse the dilemma
of adolescents falling into mental pain but being ignored.

Sun Jijun said that drug dependence withdrawal takes about one month, but psychological withdrawal takes two or three months to half a year, during which time if induced by various factors, it may be dependent again, so it is necessary to consolidate psychotherapy
.

Wang Heqiu pointed out that the high difficulty and high cost of drug dependence treatment make drug abuse "prevention is greater than cure" a general consensus
.
Shi Jie believes that in the future, early detection and early intervention should be achieved before some "high-risk groups of addiction" fall into the irreparable "first mouth", and this early intervention requires technical institutions to take the lead, form a linkage mechanism, and form a joint force
between public security, justice, health and other departments.

In addition, industry insiders have called for raising public awareness of the dangers of drug abuse and reducing unnecessary purchases and uses
.
Liu Hao suggested that the scope of drugs abused is wider than drugs, and the drug regulatory authorities need to find appropriate paths and methods
on how to better carry out prevention publicity to young people.

(Edited by Li Chuang)