Do you really need a medication lock box to safeguard your medicines? Do they represent an effective way to safeguard your medicines? Here is everything you need to know.
The truth is that medication lock boxes are the safest bet for keeping your medicines away from those who should not be using them. Medication lock boxes can help to prevent accidental poisonings and medication abuse.
Table of Contents
Safeguarding Dangerous Prescriptions
There are many dangerous prescriptions that can lead to serious side effects and even death when used improperly. Take opioid painkillers for instance which are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in North America alone. Accidental overdose or abuse of these prescriptions as well as others can be largely reduced by stowing them safely in medication lock boxes.
With a medication lock box you can enjoy peace of mind knowing that your little child will not ingest it by mistake or your teen kids will not experiment with dangerous prescriptions.
Over-the-Counter Medications
You might be thinking that you have over-the-counter medications only and that a medication lock box is not necessary for these. But did you know that teens can abuse these medicines to get high?
Most OTC medicines for colds and cough contain dextromethorphan, which is known to be highly addictive. Around one in ten teens have admitted that they abused these medicines to get high on this addictive ingredient. That’s terrible because dextromethorphan overdoses can kill. So even with OTC cough and cold medications, your teens are at risk of substance abuse, accidental poisoning, drug overdose, and death if you do not stash them safely in medication lock boxes.
Teens
Teen medication abuse is a major problem in our society. Nearly a quarter of all teens have admitted that they have abused medications at some point in their lives. Teens have a misconception that medications are a safer alternative to illicit street drugs. The best way to keep your naïve and inform teen away from medicine abuse is to keep all your prescriptions in a medication lock box and warn them about the dangers posed by the inappropriate use of these drugs.
A teenager’s brain is inherently wired for addiction. The reason for this is that the reward centers develop much more quickly in the young teenage brain while the decision-making center develops as late as the mid and late twenties. This is the reason why you see risk-taking and pleasure-seeking behavior in teens even though they may be extremely detrimental. Teens indulge in such risky behavior because their decision-making center, the prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped. Hence, they have an impaired logical-decision-making capability which sets them up for addiction. Their brains seek pleasure and care less about logic. It is like having a race car without brakes.
Thus, you should never take the risk with your teens and pre-teens. Even people in their early twenties may be at high risk for addiction since brain development completes in the mid or late twenties.
Small Children
There is a reason why medicine bottles come with child-proof caps. Small children are incapable of understanding even the simplest and most basic things. But there is bad news in store. Even small toddlers are capable of opening these caps so they can hardly be described as fool-proof.
Statistics show that 800,000 children are rushed to hospitals due to accidental drug ingestion. At 90%, the overwhelming majority of these accidental poisoning cases happen at home. This is a major cause for concern because certain prescriptions like pain medicines are so powerful and dangerous that even one pill may be enough to kill a child.
There is no other way to keep small children safe from strong prescriptions besides keeping them in a medication lock box.
Vitamins and Supplements
It may be hard for you to believe but the reality is that supplements can be downright dangerous for small children. If taken incorrectly, even mineral and vitamin pills can poison small children. That’s because their tiny and weak bodies are too underdeveloped for safely metabolizing doses that are too large for them.
Did you know that something as seemingly innocuous and commonplace as an iron supplement can be possibly lethal for small children? In fact, iron poisoning is the leading cause of supplement poisoning in children under six years of age.
The attractive packaging and shape of these supplements further exacerbate the risk of accidental poisoning in small children. Many supplements and multivitamins in particular are as colorful as candy. Children may mistake them for sweets and accidentally poison themselves.
Pet Medicine
Around half of all households in North America keep a pet. Pets can and do get sick for which they may require veterinary medicine. Pet medicines are every bit as dangerous for children and teens as conventional medicines.
In fact, many of the medicines that vets prescribe for pets are those that are commonly used by people. Thus, if you have a sick pet on medicines then there is a risk of accidental poisoning, abuse, and overdose.
Medical Cannabis
Cannabis is now legal in several states and soon a time will come when it may very well be legal in all of America if you take the popularity and increasing social acceptance of medical cannabis into consideration. Cannabis is now being seen as less of a street drug and more as a substance of medicinal value.
Once again, this poses the risk of addiction, abuse, and poisoning in teens and children. If you have a medication lock box at hand then you will need to worry less about marijuana abuse and addiction.
Travel
A medicine lock box is an absolute must if you are on prescriptions and want to travel. They will keep your medicines safe so that there is a smaller risk of losing them.
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AUTHOR’S BIO:
Jack Finkelstein has experience of 25 years in the field of sales and sales management in the market of the United States and Canada. With Med-lock he is managing the one-stop-shop experience for cannabis packaging and glass dropper bottles etc. Jack has been in touch with an extensive contact list of large U.S. and Canadian retailers for more than 25 years now.