FDA report: people use anti-diarrhea drugs to get high

When you think about commonly abused over-the-counter drugs, you may think of pain killers or cough medicine. However now, according to the Food and Drug Administration, anti-diarrhea medicine has been added to that list.

Joe Knight says, “I think it’s absolutely crazy that someone would go to that extreme.”

Brittany Stevenson says, “I think it’s dangerous, you know somebody could get really hurt.”

Abusers are using drugs like Imodium and similar over-the-counter drugs to get heroin-like highs, according to the FDA.

Ben Forrest, a pharmacist at Apple Drugs in Salisbury says, “In large doses it can cross into the brain, you know into your central system. It can cause your opiate high if you will and not just the side effect of slowing your G.I. track.”

Forrest says the recommended dose to stop diarrhea with a drug like Imodium is anywhere between 8 and 16 milligrams a day.

The FDA reports abusers using up to 300 milligrams at once to get high. It’s a potentially dangerous dose. The medicine can also get someone a little backed up.

Forrest says, “Absolutely. I mean you’re using it to induce constipation. You’re using it to counter diarrhea.”

The drug can also cause heart problems, with reports of deaths and dozens of people hospitalized.

Between 2011 and 2014, national poison centers reported a 71 percent increase in calls involving Loperamide containing drugs. Loperamide is sold under the name Imodium. 

These discoveries are now raising questions if anti-diarrhea products should be harder for people to get their hands on. Forrest says it’s too soon to tell what regulations could be ahead.

Forrest continues, “There’s not a whole lot up in there yet for if or when it would be controlled or regulated.”

More than 47,000 drug overdoses were recorded in 2014 in the U.S. Of those overdoses, opioids account for 61 percent of them. Those statistics are according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.