KCTV 5Students sick after taking anxiety medication

CLEVELAND, TX (KHOU/CNN) – more than a dozen high school students in Texas got sick after taking prescription pills.

School officials in Cleveland, TX, said they were using the popular drug, Lorazepam to get high. Lorazepam normally is prescribed as an anti-anxiety medication.

Sixteen of the Cleveland High School students were caught using the drug and nine were rushed to the hospital.

“It's one of the most dangerous drug families to detox from,” said George Youngblood of Teen and Family Services. “It could cause seizures and really needs to be medically supervised from a detox perspective. It is a very addictive drug.”

Cleveland ISD police plan to charge four students with possessing and distributing the pills. The school will punish the others. Investigators are still trying to find out where the teens got the drugs.

Some experts say they can be found in many homes and many parents may not realize the street value of a small anti-anxiety pill.

“Parents unknowingly may leave these pills out for their kids to have access to, and so, someone may take it to a school and sell it,” Youngblood said.

Students tell us the drugs can cost anywhere from $5 to $6 a pill. if someone takes a large quantity, it makes them feel as though they are drunk without even drinking.

“A combination of alcohol and benzodiazepines is extremely dangerous,” Youngblood said. “I think if you go down to the emergency room around Houston on Friday and Saturday night, it's very common to see adolescents in there with a drug overdose.”

All nine students treated at the hospital were released.

Copyright 2012 KHOU via CNN. All rights reserved.

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