My son has abused otc drugs. Jerect is exactly right that they will turn to those when they cant get what they want. My son started to otc drugs because he wont test positive on drug tests. The kids also think that if its otc its not as bad as doing illegal drugs. But they are wrong. There are so many otc drugs that they take - they just take 10 or 20 times the recommended does.
My son overdosed on unisom about three months ago - unknown to me if you take two you go to sleep and if you take a handful you hallucinate. He took 20. It was one of the scariest things i've ever experienced and he was right its really hard to find them in drug tests - even once we knew what he took they couldnt see it in the standard tests. He didnt know who we were or even who he was for about 10 hours and we almost got to the point that they had to strap him to his hospital bed. Because they couldnt find what or if he had taken anything at the ER they had to rule out that something else was wrong with him so we had a multitude of tests including cat scan and spinal tap.
Kids dont think that otc drugs are as dangerous as other drugs but they are and you should take it just as serious as you would if he was using heroin, crack, or meth.