The abuse of prescription drugs made
their way into teenage culture and at the same time
became an invisible epidemic. 783,936 people in
the United States die every year from conventional
medicine mistakes, such as abusing prescription
drugs, according to the groundbreaking medical report
Death by Medicine, by Dr. Gary Null, Carolyn
Dean, Martin Feldman, Debora Rasio and Dorothy
Smith.
“Prescription drug abuse has always been
out there but now it is becoming recognized,” said
Claudia Cohen, licensed clinical social worker at
Hospice.
Prescription drugs (known as Rx drugs)
are prescribed by doctors daily for anything from a
common cold to attention defi cient disorder (ADD).
Many common prescription drugs include Opioids,
Benzodiazepines, and Ritalin.
“Body mass relates to how much is given
to the person. A dose for an overweight person
would be to strong for a teenager that’s slim,” said
Claudia Cohen, licensed clinical social worker at
Hospice.
Prescription drugs are used to treat all sorts
of symptoms but all have the potential to be dangerous,
when many are taken, such as a drug reaction
can occur because the drugs are made out of many
chemicals and elements.
“Drugs can be toxic to people, causing
them to choke on their vomit, become unconscious,
or die,” said Claudia Cohen, licensed clinical
social worker at Hospice
According to the National Institute Drug
Association (NIDA)’s 2005 Monitoring the Future
study conducted by the University of Michigan,
9.5% of high school seniors used Vicodin in the past
year.
Five million kids every day misuse pre
scription drugs to cause damage to their bodies
instead of using the prescription drugs to cure
symptoms.
“At normal doses Rx drugs are used to
fi ght infection. At overdose levels side effects begin
to happen, such as seizures,” said Annette Guerra,
Pharmacist at the Target Store Pharmacy.
The Drug Enforcement Administration reported
that Ritalin misuse in high schools increased
from 3 – 16% from 1992 to 1995. According to the
Partnership for Drug Free America’s annual tracking
study, 1 in 5 teenagers report abusing prescription
drugs, such as stimulants and tranquilizers.
“When trying to abuse prescription drugs
most teenagers mix drugs with alcohol and intoxicate
themselves,” said Cohen.
Not all prescription drugs can be abused to
the extent where the person gets addicted. According
to Cohen, A cancer patient taking morphine
cannot get addicted to it.
When abusing prescription drugs there is a
difference between tolerance and addiction.
Tolerance to a prescription drug causes the
body to become used to the drug so progressively;
the person does not have a response to the drug anymore,
unless the dose begins to increase. Addiction,
on the other hand, is when the person cannot live
without the drug.
“Addiction to the drug all depends on the
type of drug and what it is used for,” said Cohen.
Addiction to prescription drugs is no
different from abusing any other illicit drug and
does not discriminate between race, gender, or age.
Although females between the ages of 12 to 17 and
18 to 25 have shown the largest increase
of prescription drug abuse over the past two decades,
according to NIDA.
Not all teenagers abusing prescription
drugs do so with the intention of hurting themselves
but prescription drugs, in the end, can become
lethal.
“There is this mistaken belief that intentionally
abusing prescription and over-the-counter
drugs is somehow safer than abusing street drugs,”
said Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of the New
York-based Partnership for Drug Free America.
“Many teenagers abuse drugs to relieve
them of pressure or for a thrill,” said Cohen.
“In today’s world the use of drugs are
widespread, easy to get, and abuse is rapidly
increasing,” said Claudia Cohen, licensed clinical
social worker at Hospice.