(RIGHT) - Many people today, especially among the younger generations, are abusing prescription medications.By SUMMER KELLEY First published in the March 12 edition.
(RIGHT) - Many people today, especially among the younger generations, are abusing prescription medications.
The recent death of a Ringgold High School teenager due to an overdose of prescription painkillers hits close to home. Unfortunately, the youth’s death is not that unusual. According to he U.S. Department of Health, “over the past decade-and-a-half, the number of teen and young adult (ages 12 to 25) new abusers of prescription painkillers such as oxycodone (OxyContin) or hydrocodone (Vicodin) have grown five-fold (from 400,000 in the mid-eighties to 2 million in 2000).”
Most people have heard and some are even a part of Generation X, the generation that includes those who grew up during the Reagan era and saw the cold war and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today’s generation has become known as Generation Rx, not just for the number of children, youth and young adults taking regularly prescribed medications, but for the fact that so many of the current generation are relying on prescription drugs to give them the “high” they think they’re looking for.
Students call it “pharming” and it means grabbing a handful of pills and taking all or part of them at once. The pills come from the homes and medicine cabinets of parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, or friends.
What makes them so attractive is the ease of getting them and the fact that the medications are free. Experts in teen drug abuse problems attribute the increase in prescription drug abuse in part to the misinformation and lack of knowledge teens have regarding the effects prescription medications can have.
"Kids are looking for euphoria and aren’t realizing the dangers," said Dade County Sheriff Patrick Cannon.
Allergic reactions, bad drug interactions and a number of complications including death, can result through the abuse of prescription medications."
“Education and awareness is the best way (to attack teenage prescription drug abuse),” Cannon said. “We are teaching several drug classes…making the kids aware, making the parents aware.”
Dade School Superintendent Patty Priest agrees, saying that it is important that students learn at a very young age that drug interactions can kill them.
“They need to understand there are consequences,” Priest said. “For other kids, when they know something like drug abuse is happening, they need to tell a person in authority. It may be being a snitch, but it is being a snitch to save someone’s life.” The school resource officers have been working with students not only on the harm of illegal drug use, but also on the damage that can be caused by prescription and over-the-counter drug abuse.
“The medicines are prescribed for a distinct purpose,” School Resource Officer Josh Powell said. “We are working hard with students to make them aware of the consequences of abusing prescription drugs.”
Lawmakers are currently looking at creating legislation that would make the parents or guardians liable for youth who have had access to prescription drugs that they are abusing. The Partnership for a Drug Free America’s campaign against prescription and over-the-counter drug abuse says that parents are important in combating the abuse through educating themselves on which drugs kids are abusing, communicating with their children the consequences of using these medications, and safeguarding medications from their children and keeping track of what is being used in the home.
More information regarding prescription and over-the-counter drug abuse can be found at drugfree.org/parents, ncadi.samhsa.gov, and teendrugabuse.us .
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