Ryan Smith remembers the night, during his junior year of high school, when a friend gave him his first Vicodin. "It felt so incredible. I remember thinking, 'I am going to do this for the rest of my life,' " he says.
Over the next year, Smith, now 22, and his friends moved on to other pills — Xanax, Valium, OxyContin and the attention-deficit disorder medication Adderall, called "kiddie cocaine" for its ability to be crushed and snorted. "At the time, it felt like I knew more kids who were doing pills than who weren't," he says of his Utah high-school days.
Daniel Smith, his younger brother, began using prescription drugs the same way when a friend offered him Vicodin while watching a school football game during his sophomore year. By that summer, he began taking "weak painkillers" such as Lortab and Percocet. Finally, he turned to highly addictive OxyContin, using it several times a week.
Although the brothers eventually went through an addiction program, they never considered themselves "druggies." They were using pills safe enough to be used by millions of Americans, drugs both legal and easy to get.
Each generation typically finds a new illicit drug to make its own: LSD in the '70s, cocaine in the '80s and Ecstasy and heroin in the '90s. Today's middle- and high-school students are experimenting with prescription drugs.
Last week, two students at Snohomish Freshman Campus in the city of Snohomish were rushed, unconscious, to a hospital after one had taken OxyContin and the other an antidepressant. The two are now recovering at home, and the students who supplied them with the prescription drugs were arrested Saturday.
Last month 16 students at Bothell's Skyview Junior High were suspended for distributing or taking drugs, including Vicodin and Adderall. Northshore School District spokeswoman Susan Stoltzfus said some of the students took the drugs without knowing what they were.
Adults use them, too
The drugs of choice are those often preferred by adults. After amphetamines such as Ritalin, they're turning to painkillers such as Vicodin and Percocet, then sedatives and tranquilizers.
Nationwide, prescription pills have become a societal force. Adults and children rely on them for a growing list of afflictions, including anxiety, depression, even shyness, for which few alternatives were available a generation ago. Nearly half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug.
Meanwhile, direct-to-consumer drug marketing that touts new and expanded uses has become widespread. Adults and children alike are exposed to print, television and radio ads promising happier, more fulfilled lives. For young people, experts say, all these factors appear to have blurred the line between the benefits and dangers of the medications.
As prescription drug sales have soared — up nearly 400 percent since 1990 — prescription medication has become the fastest-growing category of drugs being abused, with the biggest growth of abuse among people ages 12 to 24, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. After marijuana, prescription drugs are the drugs most commonly abused by teenagers, the federal agency says.
Nationally, an estimated 14 percent of high-school seniors have used prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons at least once in their lifetime, according to a 2004 University of Michigan survey that tracks drug trends among middle- and high-school students.
Party prescriptions
"It's a major concern to us that young people have the impression they can use medicine as a party drug," says Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The rise in prescription abuse — or "pharming" as young people and drug counselors sometimes call it — worries treatment counselors and drug-research experts. A national push to reduce drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin has started to pay off, with overall drug use among young adults declining slightly in recent years. But abuse of prescription drugs — especially among younger people often dubbed the "Ritalin generation" — has been growing and could grow further as drug sales continue to increase.
"Pills are more seductive to kids because they see them as cleaner, safer and less illegal," says Carol Falkowski, a drug researcher at Hazelden, a nationally known treatment center in Center City, Minn.
Many younger users don't know what many of the drugs are for or which pills are more addictive than others, Falkowski says. Nor do they have much sense of what dosages are truly dangerous or how separate drugs interact. Are four Percocets worse than two Vicodin? Can Valium be mixed with Xanax? Treatment counselors say some young users take a fistful of different drugs at once.
After the two Snohomish students were hospitalized, school district spokeswoman Shannon Parthemer said parents need to talk to their children about the dangers of prescription drugs in the same way they would warn them about illegal drug use.
"Both these drugs (OxyContin and an antidepressant) could be found in the home. Parents need to be proactive about the risks," she said.
Data from the federal Drug Abuse Warning Network show that visits to hospital emergency departments for overdoses of prescription drugs have increased in Seattle and nationwide.
Between 1995 and 2002, pain relievers — OxyContin or Lortab, for example — involved in Seattle emergency-room visits increased 85 percent.
Data also show that many were using more than one drug.
"We see a lot of kids doing pills in combination with something else, like alcohol or marijuana," says Tim Burdick, director of chemical dependency services at Seattle's Ryther Child Center, which offers an inpatient drug-treatment program for adolescents. Of the 20 kids in the program, six have a history of prescription-drug abuse, he says.
Strategizing symptoms
Sometimes it's as easy as sneaking some expired, forgotten painkillers out of dad's cupboard. But increasingly, Burdick says, teens are savvy enough to know how to feign or exaggerate symptoms to elicit the desired prescriptions — such as Ritalin — from their doctors
"Sometimes it's not even about the impact of the drug itself — they're not getting what you'd call a high by popping antidepressants — but getting the drug is the exciting part," he says.
Students say prescription pills can often be less expensive than other drugs such as marijuana and cocaine. Pain pills such as Vicodin sell for around $5, depending on the dose, while stronger medications such as OxyContin can cost several times that. Ritalin, one of the most widely available drugs, sells for $1 to $2 a pill, students say, but can be more expensive before midterms and finals, when students use them to cram.
Under federal law, it's illegal to possess controlled substances without a prescription. But prosecutions for possession are rare, especially when minors are involved. Many schools bar students from carrying medications without a prescription, but enforcement can be difficult.
Response from state and federal governments and pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, has been limited. Last year, the Bush administration introduced an effort to control prescription drug abuse, but most of the plan centers on reducing sales of narcotic medications online or by doctors who write pain prescriptions too freely.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration have instituted a new print and television ad campaign, "The Buzz Can Take Your Breath Away," highlighting the dangers of prescription drug abuse among young people. And Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has introduced a public campaign about the dangers of abusing the drug after reports of misuse.
Ryan and Daniel Smith both recently completed a rehabilitation program for prescription drug abuse. Now attending college in Arizona, they say they're trying to keep each other from relapsing.
Both have been sober for nearly a year, and they've each started part-time jobs. The two say they occasionally attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings but don't like going because some of the people who attend depress them.
"We weren't really druggies," says Daniel. "We just fell into something. The pills were all over the place."
Seattle Times staff reporters Julia Sommerfeld, Lynn Thompson and Ashley Bach contributed to this report
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kids getting high — and hooked — on prescription drugs
Mar 30/2005
By Daniel Costello
Los Angeles Times
Link
Over the next year, Smith, now 22, and his friends moved on to other pills — Xanax, Valium, OxyContin and the attention-deficit disorder medication Adderall, called "kiddie cocaine" for its ability to be crushed and snorted. "At the time, it felt like I knew more kids who were doing pills than who weren't," he says of his Utah high-school days.
Daniel Smith, his younger brother, began using prescription drugs the same way when a friend offered him Vicodin while watching a school football game during his sophomore year. By that summer, he began taking "weak painkillers" such as Lortab and Percocet. Finally, he turned to highly addictive OxyContin, using it several times a week.
Although the brothers eventually went through an addiction program, they never considered themselves "druggies." They were using pills safe enough to be used by millions of Americans, drugs both legal and easy to get.
Each generation typically finds a new illicit drug to make its own: LSD in the '70s, cocaine in the '80s and Ecstasy and heroin in the '90s. Today's middle- and high-school students are experimenting with prescription drugs.
Last week, two students at Snohomish Freshman Campus in the city of Snohomish were rushed, unconscious, to a hospital after one had taken OxyContin and the other an antidepressant. The two are now recovering at home, and the students who supplied them with the prescription drugs were arrested Saturday.
Last month 16 students at Bothell's Skyview Junior High were suspended for distributing or taking drugs, including Vicodin and Adderall. Northshore School District spokeswoman Susan Stoltzfus said some of the students took the drugs without knowing what they were.
Adults use them, too
The drugs of choice are those often preferred by adults. After amphetamines such as Ritalin, they're turning to painkillers such as Vicodin and Percocet, then sedatives and tranquilizers.
Nationwide, prescription pills have become a societal force. Adults and children rely on them for a growing list of afflictions, including anxiety, depression, even shyness, for which few alternatives were available a generation ago. Nearly half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug.
Meanwhile, direct-to-consumer drug marketing that touts new and expanded uses has become widespread. Adults and children alike are exposed to print, television and radio ads promising happier, more fulfilled lives. For young people, experts say, all these factors appear to have blurred the line between the benefits and dangers of the medications.
As prescription drug sales have soared — up nearly 400 percent since 1990 — prescription medication has become the fastest-growing category of drugs being abused, with the biggest growth of abuse among people ages 12 to 24, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. After marijuana, prescription drugs are the drugs most commonly abused by teenagers, the federal agency says.
Nationally, an estimated 14 percent of high-school seniors have used prescription drugs for nonmedical reasons at least once in their lifetime, according to a 2004 University of Michigan survey that tracks drug trends among middle- and high-school students.
Party prescriptions
"It's a major concern to us that young people have the impression they can use medicine as a party drug," says Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The rise in prescription abuse — or "pharming" as young people and drug counselors sometimes call it — worries treatment counselors and drug-research experts. A national push to reduce drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin has started to pay off, with overall drug use among young adults declining slightly in recent years. But abuse of prescription drugs — especially among younger people often dubbed the "Ritalin generation" — has been growing and could grow further as drug sales continue to increase.
"Pills are more seductive to kids because they see them as cleaner, safer and less illegal," says Carol Falkowski, a drug researcher at Hazelden, a nationally known treatment center in Center City, Minn.
Many younger users don't know what many of the drugs are for or which pills are more addictive than others, Falkowski says. Nor do they have much sense of what dosages are truly dangerous or how separate drugs interact. Are four Percocets worse than two Vicodin? Can Valium be mixed with Xanax? Treatment counselors say some young users take a fistful of different drugs at once.
After the two Snohomish students were hospitalized, school district spokeswoman Shannon Parthemer said parents need to talk to their children about the dangers of prescription drugs in the same way they would warn them about illegal drug use.
"Both these drugs (OxyContin and an antidepressant) could be found in the home. Parents need to be proactive about the risks," she said.
Data from the federal Drug Abuse Warning Network show that visits to hospital emergency departments for overdoses of prescription drugs have increased in Seattle and nationwide.
Between 1995 and 2002, pain relievers — OxyContin or Lortab, for example — involved in Seattle emergency-room visits increased 85 percent.
Data also show that many were using more than one drug.
"We see a lot of kids doing pills in combination with something else, like alcohol or marijuana," says Tim Burdick, director of chemical dependency services at Seattle's Ryther Child Center, which offers an inpatient drug-treatment program for adolescents. Of the 20 kids in the program, six have a history of prescription-drug abuse, he says.
Strategizing symptoms
Sometimes it's as easy as sneaking some expired, forgotten painkillers out of dad's cupboard. But increasingly, Burdick says, teens are savvy enough to know how to feign or exaggerate symptoms to elicit the desired prescriptions — such as Ritalin — from their doctors
"Sometimes it's not even about the impact of the drug itself — they're not getting what you'd call a high by popping antidepressants — but getting the drug is the exciting part," he says.
Students say prescription pills can often be less expensive than other drugs such as marijuana and cocaine. Pain pills such as Vicodin sell for around $5, depending on the dose, while stronger medications such as OxyContin can cost several times that. Ritalin, one of the most widely available drugs, sells for $1 to $2 a pill, students say, but can be more expensive before midterms and finals, when students use them to cram.
Under federal law, it's illegal to possess controlled substances without a prescription. But prosecutions for possession are rare, especially when minors are involved. Many schools bar students from carrying medications without a prescription, but enforcement can be difficult.
Response from state and federal governments and pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, has been limited. Last year, the Bush administration introduced an effort to control prescription drug abuse, but most of the plan centers on reducing sales of narcotic medications online or by doctors who write pain prescriptions too freely.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration have instituted a new print and television ad campaign, "The Buzz Can Take Your Breath Away," highlighting the dangers of prescription drug abuse among young people. And Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has introduced a public campaign about the dangers of abusing the drug after reports of misuse.
Ryan and Daniel Smith both recently completed a rehabilitation program for prescription drug abuse. Now attending college in Arizona, they say they're trying to keep each other from relapsing.
Both have been sober for nearly a year, and they've each started part-time jobs. The two say they occasionally attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings but don't like going because some of the people who attend depress them.
"We weren't really druggies," says Daniel. "We just fell into something. The pills were all over the place."
Seattle Times staff reporters Julia Sommerfeld, Lynn Thompson and Ashley Bach contributed to this report
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kids getting high — and hooked — on prescription drugs
Mar 30/2005
By Daniel Costello
Los Angeles Times
Link
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
