STORES RESTRICT DRAMAMINE SALES

MERRILL -- Merrill retailers are closely monitoring and restricting sales
of Dramamine after the Police Department investigated a case in which two
teenage girls took large doses of the motion sickness medicine for a
hallucinogenic high.

Customers must ask for Dramamine at some stores that now keep the
over-the-counter drug behind service desks to supervise its sales. Two
stores - Johnson Pharmacy and Dave's County Market - have taken the
medicine off their main shelves.

Other stores will ask purchasers for an ID as they do with alcohol and
cigarettes. At most places, suspicious sales of multiple boxes of the
medicine will be refused.

Merrill Police Chief Neil Strobel sent a letter earlier this month alerting
store owners and managers that local teens could be trying to buy multiple
packages of Drama-mine. The letter stemmed from a Feb. 23 incident in which
two 17-year-old girls told officers they took 10 to 20 motion sickness
pills and that other teens often do the same.

Overdoses of Dramamine and its generic counterparts, which speed up the
heart rate, could kill anyone with cardiovascular disease, said Art
Marquis, the emergency room physician at Good Samaritan Health Center in
Merrill who treated the girls.

"If (teenagers) are totally healthy, they'll probably survive an overdose,"
he said. "But it will be that one kid in 10,000 with heart disease that
nobody detected that will die."

According to police reports, officers responded to an underage drinking
complaint about 3:45 a.m. Feb. 23 at Pine Ridge Inn, 200 S. Pine Ridge Ave.
The caller told police they needed to check a girl who was "talking strange
and acting funny."

When the officer arrived, one of the girls admitted they took numerous
pills. Later, they told police many of their peers take Dramamine in large
amounts.

Dimenhydrinate, the active ingredient in motion sickness pills such as
Dramamine, can cause hallucinations, sedation or hyperactivity lasting
about 12 hours.

Mixing large amounts of the medicine with alcohol, marijuana or other drugs
increases the risk of a fatal heart attack, Marquis said.

Rita Bonnell, co-owner of Dave's County Market, told cashiers not only to
watch for people coming through with two or three boxes, but someone coming
into the store multiple times to purchase the product.

But Bonnell isn't sure the measures will stop someone from getting large
amounts of the medicine.

"These kids aren't stupid," she said. "Nine times out of 10 they're going
to try and steal it. They're going to get it regardless."