| Red Ribbon Week assemblies are the perfect | | | | based. When designing your Red Ribbon Week |
| opportunity to highlight prescription medication | | | | assembly program, be sure to educate students |
| abuse amongst teenagers and youths. The | | | | on encouraging their parents to keep prescription |
| OASAS 2008 Youth Development Survey | | | | drugs under lock and key as well as monitoring |
| identified that one in five youths living in New | | | | the daily usage. |
| York State, have at one time or another | | | | Most youths who are starting to experience |
| participated in the use and abuse of prescription | | | | various kinds of thrills, will soon realize that their |
| medications. By now that figure has probably | | | | medicine cabinet at home can be an easy and |
| doubled, which increases the need to focus on this | | | | readily available source of drugs. Over the counter |
| kind of drug abuse during an anti-drug assembly. | | | | medication like cough syrup, grandpa's codeine |
| When parents start investigating whether their | | | | based painkillers, and cold and flu capsules all |
| children are using or abusing illicit substances, they | | | | contain addictive substances and have the |
| often fail to look in their own home's bathrooms. | | | | potential to be abused. Spend some time during |
| Most homes keep a selection of prescription drugs | | | | your Red Ribbon Week assembly explaining the |
| from valium to beta blockers and some homes | | | | different kinds of medicines and what effects |
| even have high end pain killers that are morphine | | | | they could possibly have if abused. |