Prescription Drug Abuse Into All

¶ … Prescription Drug Abuse Into All Drug-Education Programs

Denial. It's what all addicts do, before they admit that something is wrong. They deny they have a problem. From the outside, if someone is injecting heroin in their veins or getting drunk every night, it's easy to see that person has an issue, abusing recreational drugs. To the addict, however, everything is under control. But addiction doesn't just wear the face of heroin, cigarettes, alcohol, or cocaine. Prescription drugs are becoming a bigger problem amongst America's young people today. This is why abuse of prescription medication should be given equal weight in today's anti-drug education programs. A lack of recognition of this kind of abuse as a problem, a lack of acknowledgement of the problem's severity amongst adolescents, and a lack of outreach efforts directed towards young people regarding prescription drug abuse must all be addressed with, through a solution of expanded educational efforts.

According to the website drugwarfacts.com, in 2004, 6.0 million persons abused prescription drugs. This figure included 4.4 million who used pain relievers, 1.6 million who used tranquilizers, 1.2 million who used stimulants, and 0.3 million who used sedatives. These estimates were all similar to the corresponding estimates for 2003 -- however there were significant increases in the use from 2003 to 2004 among people aged 18 to 25. Educational efforts must increase to curtail these numbers, which threaten to spiral out of control, if they are ignored.

Despite these sobering statistics, the major national youth drug education initiatives, such as D.A.R.E., give only minimal consideration to prescription drug abuse, focusing instead upon street drugs such as cocaine and marijuana. Many teens may not have the financial or the social resources to gain access to hard drugs, or even soft drugs, but the tools for self-abuse still lie in their parent's medicine chests, in the form of unused Vicodin and Percoset prescriptions. Perhaps their parents or grandparents use such drugs, which make the use of these medications for recreational purposes seem 'normal.' Ultimately, awareness is half the battle, but until everyone realizes that using prescription drugs is a problem amongst teens, abuse will continue to spiral out of control. In the words of one user: "I convinced herself that abusing prescription drugs was safer than abusing heroin, marijuana, and other 'street drugs'...I would never do those." (Meadows, 2001) So long as the drugs are available by prescription, it is easy to think that abusing these drugs is okay, especially in the minds of impressionable teens.

Did you know that OxyContin is actually a form of morphine, like heroin, and is often just as additive, especially when it is crushed and injected intravenously or snorted into the nostrils, as it is by many addicts whose tolerance has escalated after repeated use of the drug? (Meadows, 2001) Do you have a friend with ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder? Ritalin (methylphenidate) abuse amongst high school students and even middle school students is on the rise! The presence of younger and younger addicts, who can't even drive, but can buy this drug, which produces effects more potent than caffeine and if improperly used can small cause heart problems and damage the blood vessels in the lungs and retina of the eye if it is injected, demonstrates the need to give prescription medication abuse equal treatment as early as possible in the schools. Teens need to know the difference between sanctioned use and abuse and when it comes to prescription drugs, the lines can seem blurry. (Meadows, 2001)