BEREA, Ohio – Four Roehm Middle School students are accused of selling prescription pills and over the counter medicine to their classmates, and could be kicked out of school.
Principal Jason Niedermeyer said the four seventh graders were selling the pills for a dollar or giving them out to other students. Sixteen kids total were involved.
He said some students threw the pills away, others ingested them in school. The pills were not narcotics, but antidepressants and over the counter medicine, like Mucinex D.
Mucinex D contains an ingredient called DXM that, when taken in large amounts, can cause people to get high.
“Whether it was a pain killer or anti-depressant, the point of the story for me is kids need to make better choices and we need to do a good job to make sure the are educated when it comes to making those choices,” Niedermeyer said.
School officials are looking at their drug awareness and education programs to see what they need to add or change. Health professionals say parents should use this as a wake-up call.
“Some kids are doing this on a much more frequent basis and that means parents have to know where their prescription drugs are at all times and if that means that parents have to lock them up then that’s what they have to do,” said Dr. Christina Delos Reyes, Chief Clinical Officer at the ADAMHS Board of Cuyahoga County.
Parents were notified about the incident by a letter.
The four students accused of selling or the distributing the pills are suspended from school with a recommendation for expulsion.
The other students involved are going through the disciplinary process.
