Hallucinations and Vomiting, Yet "I Can't Stop": A Growing Trend Among Teens

[Anchor]

A growing number of teenagers are taking excessive amounts of common cold medicine or painkillers easily purchased at pharmacies, treating it like a game. An increasing number of adolescents are sliding into drug addiction after starting out of curiosity for temporary hallucinogenic effects.

Reporter Je Hui-won takes a closer look at the reality in an in-depth report.

[Reporter]

A, a 17-year-old, first turned to drugs three years ago when she was a middle school student.

While searching for a way to soothe her feelings of depression and anxiety, she learned about overdosing on large quantities of cold medicine or sleeping pills through social media, in a so-called "OD party."

[Teenager A / Experienced Drug Addiction]
"I think it started with five pills at the very beginning. Asking to recommend stronger pills, or pills with fewer side effects…."

Suffering from hallucinations and vomiting, she sought out pills again whenever she had a restless night.

[Teenager A / Experienced Drug Addiction]
"(Now) I take about 10 to 20 pills. You feel dizzy, you see hallucinations, you hear auditory hallucinations, and your body gets ruined."

Social media is full of reviews by teenagers sharing tips on which cold medicine combinations yield strong hallucinogenic effects, as well as how long the drug effects last.

There are even reviews claiming that regular pharmacies automatically hand over large quantities of medicine without asking any questions.

The problem is that, unlike alcohol or cigarettes, over-the-counter drugs carry no obligation to verify the buyer's age.

[Pharmacy B]
"(Can I buy 10?) 20? (10.) 17,000 won. Please wait a moment."

Some pharmacies even recommend products containing larger quantities.

[Pharmacy C]
"Should I give you five? There is also a larger package with 12. This is a bit cheaper."

Our reporting team visited five pharmacies and purchased multi-symptom cold medicine and sleep aids all at once.

We were able to purchase this much in just 30 minutes.

Not a single place asked about the purpose of medication or warned of the risks of abuse and misuse.

The barrier to entry has lowered further with the recent increase in warehouse-style pharmacies that sell over-the-counter drugs in larger quantities at cheaper prices.

[Ryu Jeong-hee / Research Fellow, Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs]
"In a very specialized format, changes to the body when using 10, 20, 30, or 40 pills are casually shared. Starting with over-the-counter drugs that are the easiest to get your hands on, they truly learn about narcotic substances…."

Among all drug addiction patients, teen patients have increased by nearly 40% over the span of four years, and nearly 3,000 teenagers visited emergency rooms due to drug abuse and misuse over the past year.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
(Video by Kim Hak-mo and Bae Moon-san | Video Editing by Kim Yoon-sung | Design by Seo Seung-hyun)

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[Anchor]

Now, let's talk more with Reporter Je Hui-won, who covered this story.

Q. How serious is adolescent drug overdosing?

[Reporter Je Hui-won : As I reported earlier, statistics show a sharp surge in teenagers visiting hospitals due to drug misuse and abuse, but cases not captured in official statistics are believed to be far greater. A single community where members share reviews with each other like a form of play culture via social media had about 5,000 members. In particular, the proportion of female students was about four times higher than male students, and among the teenagers who visited emergency rooms last year, about 400 were under the age of 14, showing a trend where the age at which they first encounter OD, or overdosing, is getting younger.]

Q. How are large-scale purchases of drugs by teens regulated?

[Reporter Je Hui-won : The drugs that teenagers seek out are general multi-symptom cold medicines or painkillers that can be easily bought around them. Experts warn that taking large amounts of these drugs continuously can cause brain damage, and even trigger seizures, delirium, and impaired consciousness. Research results also indicate that teenagers with a history of drug abuse have more than four times higher risk of attempting suicide compared to those who do not.]

Q. What measures are needed to address adolescent drug misuse and abuse?

[Reporter Je Hui-won : The mother of an addicted teenager we met during reporting said she went around dozens of neighborhood pharmacies sharing her daughter's picture and asking them not to sell drugs, but added that she could not stop her daughter from buying drugs again. In Japan, where a similar problem occurred, the law was changed to allow only one pack of problematic over-the-counter drugs to be sold to minors. In our country, a bill was proposed last June to ban the sale of over-the-counter drugs exceeding appropriate usage amounts to minors and to make pharmacist medication guidance mandatory, but it has been lingering in the National Assembly for four months.]

(Video Editing by Kim Yoon-sung)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.