I/M cheeking and snorting meds

[tg363]

Wondering what meds your hearing being abused by I/M's and what they're doing with them. I hear artane goes for $3 and is crushed and snorted. Wellbutrin and neurontin are also hot items. Also what effect do these have in the altered form?

[KrisRN07]

I work in a Psychiatric correctional facility. We have a policy that all controlled meds such as clonazepam, lorazepam, and methylphenidate are crushed unless contraindicated because they are time release, etc. But the inmates still find creative ways to store and trade. One even came through the med line with gum in his mouth and then shared it with other inmates. We also often pass meds trap to trap, and the meds are in 1 oz. souffle cups. The inmates will keep an empty one on top of the box on their door that hides the lock, and trade the cups out when you go to give them water. One helpful hint I got from a jail conference, was that if you think they are cheeking, have them whistle. While there is no one surefire way to ensure they aren't cheeking, its always a good thing to be aware!

[jail_DON]

We float all meds. This does help. For the real difficult Mental Health patients, we try to order liquid meds.

[9064]

Love the whistle trick!

We find neurontin, tramadol, & of course narcs to be the most abused, but some I/m's will abuse anything. antihistamines, GERD meds, you name it. I make it a habit of letting i/m's know that if they take too much of ..whatever.. they can get very ill, and use vomiting as an example. It's a stretch, I know, but not impossible. And who likes to vomit?

We crush & float all suspect meds.

[nursemichelle80, BSN, RN]

The mostly commonly abused med here is Wellbutrin. We float all meds but crush and float psych meds. The inmates hate it. :)

The MSNBC show "Locked Up" is here at our facility filming for the next 2 months. Should air sometime in 2012. Good times! You know how they behave when they're on camera!

[9064]

How can you crush wellbutrin? We have a heck of a time getting the rare order for not XR/SR?

[deyo321]

Wellbutrin is known as poor mans cocaine. We have vveerry few XR/SR, it is not on our formulary secondary to cost.

[nursemichelle80, BSN, RN]

How can you crush wellbutrin? We have a heck of a time getting the rare order for not XR/SR?

We have regular Wellbutrin on our formulary. We don't carry XR/SR because of the cost. i crush the heck out of it!

[shouldabeenabarista]

Any ADD meds (if you allow them), any narcs, psych meds such as neurontin, seroquel, etc.

If an IM is REAL friendly during med pass or several IMs are interested in what they are taking or an IM is trying to get a lot of info about the meds because they "want to know what they are taking and what the side effects are" then yeah they are doing all kinds of things with the meds.

Crushing is fine but they find all ways around it- I am amazed but you have to remember why they are there.