How to store HTML data in a database field? I'm trying to write some code for the Image marker module to allow an HTML description to be stored in the database. Currently all text is escaped and stored as plain text.

The module stores x/y coordinates and descriptions as name/value pairs in a database field, for example:

x=208&amp;y=251&amp;id=208-251&amp;description=wheel;x=77&amp;y=142&amp;id=77-142&amp;description=light


Can I store HTML descriptions this way? Is there a better way to store this kind of data?
Basic info about user input sanitization in Drupal.