We always see parents keeping track of their liquor cabinet and worrying about their kids taking drugs, but the medicine cabinet is an open access to all the addictive, dangerous prescription drugs in there. Many parents aren’t taking it seriously because they themselves also don’t think its that big of a deal. A doctor prescribes them, they’re FDA approved and they’re meant to help! However I just read in an article that schools are taking this much more seriously. Prescription drugs also violates the zero tolerance rule that most schools have. And there are now training courses for school nurses to help them recognize signs of prescription pill abuse. I think that’s really good, even though the student would hate it if they got caught, expelled, grounded. Its preventing them from flourishing this abuse into an addiction. What many people don’t seem to realize is that perscription pill abuse is also an opiate abuse. Heroin is an opiate as well, if the child can’t afford to go buy the pills and ran out of pills at their parents and grandparents house, its much cheaper for them to just buy heroin from a drug dealer and we all know what that leads to!

I could see how some parents might think this rule is annoying, but it's obvious that schools have kids in their best interest.  Even if the child just has Advil, it's still not okay to bring it in a plastic bag.. it has to be in the prescription bottle.  And if the child needs to take a pill everyday, they have to do so through the school nurse... makes sense :)

I think that rule at school where a nurse cannot give a child tylenol or advil is pretty dumb. If its a pill like that then that should be allowed, but if its a pill like oxy contin or vicodin or anything prescription that should be prohibitted. But that no tylenol and advil rule really upset me in high school. If I had a headache and had no pills with me then I'd have to go home just so I could swallow a tylenol. That was dumb.
But I'm very glad that they're taking prescription drug abuse more seriously. And I think it is very smart of them to teach nurses how to recognize the signs. Although students hat getting in trouble, getting introuble for something that could save them a lifetime of addiction sounds like a very good trade off.