Urban Outfitters pulls pill bottle-themed products after campaign condemns retailer for making light of prescription drug abuse

Kentucky politicians led fight against products they said trivialised addiction

Prescription drug misuse is the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S.



Urban Outfitters has stopped selling flasks, shot glasses and pint glasses that look like prescription pill bottles after a multi-state campaign against the products.

Political leaders in drug-plagued Kentucky led the fight to get the retailer to pull the items, saying they trivialised the pain and suffering of people struggling with addiction.

It comes as prescription drugs have grown to become the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S., with many youngsters experimenting with mistakenly believing that they're safer than street drugs.

An Urban Outfitters branch in Greenwich Village, New York: The retailer has stopped selling flasks, shot glasses and pint glasses styled as prescription pill bottles after a multi-state campaign against the products

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear said yesterday: 'I wrote a letter to the Urban Outfitters CEO shortly after learning about this abominable product line, and I'm very pleased that the store has changed course.

'There's nothing fashionable about prescription drug abuse, and selling teen-targeted items that glamorise prescription drugs is repulsive.'

Urban Outfitters, which caters to teenagers and young adults, sent a statement to the Courier-Journal of Louisville saying it had stopped selling the items.

The company did not respond to telephone calls and emails from The Associated Press yesterday.

Anti-drug group The Partnership at Drugfree.org initiated the push to get the shops to stop selling the items.

Political leaders and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway signed on last month in Kentucky, where more people now die from drug overdoses than car crashes.

Mr Conway joined 23 of his colleagues from across the country in calling on Urban Outfitters to pull the items, which he said 'make light of an epidemic that kills more than 1,000 Kentuckians each year and is responsible for more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.'

Mr Conway said prescription drugs are now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, and he said too many teens are experimenting with them, believing that they're safer than street drugs.