Teen drug abuse tilting toward prescribed meds

They’re relatively cheap. They’re often acceptable. They’re easy to get. And they’re in the schools.

Prescription drugs. A new high and the new drug of choice for teenagers across America.

In the past 10 years the rate of prescription drug abuse among teens has risen steadily. Nearly one in five — 4.5 million teenagers — admits to abusing medications not prescribed to him or her, reported a 2005 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study conducted by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

A wider range of students is reportedly experimenting with and abusing prescription drugs. Even teenagers who aren’t interested in their effects may be robbing the medicine cabinet at home for the cash in the corridors that leftover pain killers, sedatives and sleeping pills can turn over.

Joshua Lyon, 33, author of the book, “Pill Head,” offers: “It’s not like most parents are keeping unused marijuana or cocaine in the medicine cabinet, but they often have old pills they don’t keep track of.”

Teenagers may also be altering dosages on medications that have been prescribed for them; anti-anxiety and sleeping pills are reportedly being prescribed increasingly in this age group. Teens may also be ordering them online through legitimate or rogue pharmacies, by real or invented doctors.

One thing is certain: They’re deadly.

It has been widely reported that many teens have the naive belief that prescribed medications are not “hard drugs” and that they are less dangerous than the street drugs used by the stereotyped addict. After all, they’re taken by adults and given by doctors — FDA approved, mass-produced. Three out of 10 teenagers also think these drugs are not addictive, according to the Partnership Study.

Teens are readily learning how to optimize prescription-drug highs by crushing pills, doubling or tripling dosages, or simply taking handfuls of them. Whether knowingly or unwittingly, they’re also mixing them together with other seemingly benign, over-the-counter medicines, alcohol and street drugs. Many prescribed opiates like OxyContin are the pharmaceutical equivalent of heroin. And the brain doesn’t know the difference.

Across the nation, some teenagers who are experimenting with the hallucinogenic properties of the medications are “crashing,” but many more are on an indiscriminate daily maintenance — using them to handle pressure, stay alert, and feel more in control. Inevitably, they build a tolerance and crave them in ever-increasing quantities.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the types of prescription drugs most commonly abused by 12-to-17-year olds are pain relievers, followed by stimulants, tranquilizers and sedatives.

And pharmaceutical abuse has trickled down to adolescents. Prescription drugs are now the No. 1 illicit drug among 12-to-13-year olds according to the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Much of the behavior happens where teenagers spend a lot of their time — in school.

And when schools intervene, law enforcement usually gets involved.

Authorities recently took action on a prescription drug ring involving many students in a suburban school in Whippany, NJ. Baby-faced Evan Rokoszak, ringleader, sold to his student friends more than $50,000 each month of the prescription painkiller oxycodone. He was sentenced to seven years in prison as his mother cried “My baby, my baby,” reports a recent in-depth article in “Good Housekeeping” magazine.

Although a 2007 Minnesota Department of Health Student Survey shows the percentage of the state’s students who have abused prescription drugs such as Benzedrine, Ritalin, OxyContin, Percodan, Vicodin, Valium, Xanax and others as far lower than several states, recent prescription-pill incidents at both the Falls and Indus high schools emphasize the need for awareness of a growing problem.

The possibility of an accident grows with uneducated and random usage. Accidental-poisoning deaths among youths ages 15 to 24 increased 113 percent between 1999 and 2004, due mostly to prescription- and illegal-drug overdosage, allergies and negative interactions, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The risks increase exponentially. And some of these teenagers are dying.

Recent Trends in Teen Prescription Drug Abuse
• Teens are turning away from street drugs and using prescription drugs to get high. New users of prescription drugs have caught up with new users of marijuana.

• Next to marijuana, the most common illegal drugs teens are using to get high are prescription medications.

• Teens are abusing prescription drugs because they believe the myth that these drugs provide a medically safe high.

• The majority of teens get prescription drugs easily and for free, often from friends or relatives.

• Girls are more likely than boys to intentionally abuse prescription drugs to get high.

• Pain relievers such as OxyContin and Vicodin are the most commonly abused prescription drugs by teens.

• Adolescents are more likely than young adults to become dependent on prescription medication.

SOURCE: “Teens and Prescription Drugs: An analysis of recent trends on the emerging drug threat.” Study conducted by Office of National Drug Control Policy. February 2007.