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You worried about liquor or pot? How about the prescription drugs in your medicine cabinet? Meds are currently a disease and nobody is doing anything about it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/19/dr-drew-prescription-drug-abuse-teen...
Dr. Drew On Teen Prescription Drug Abuse
Updated: 10/19/11 07:45 PM ET
If you have teenagers, you may have established a system to keep them out of your liquor cabinet or wine fridge. But experts are now saying you should lock up something else -- your medicine cabinet.
The painkillers you take when your back pain flares up? It’s no secret that teens are popping those for fun. The Xanax you take to calm down before a long plane ride? They're into that too. And let's not forget the Ritalin your younger child with ADHD takes, because that's another popular one among the adolescent and college set.
While prescription drug abuse isn’t new, it’s on the rise. One in every five teens were using them in 2009, then one in every four teens were in 2010, according Dr. Drew and Smart Moves, Smart Choices, an awareness initiative.
The organization has paired up with the man on the frontlines of battling addiction, Dr. Drew Pinsky. Huff Post Parents talked to him about a missed connection between suicidal thoughts and Xanax, why parents need a lockbox instead of a medicine cabinet and the number one sign of drug abuse.
There's been such a huge surge in the abuse of prescription drugs. How did we get here?
Kids aren't dumb: if they have a genuine perception that something to harmful to them, they're less likely to use it. But, their pre-fontal cortex -- the part of the brain that perceives consequences -- isn't fully developed. The casualness with which pills are used in our houses is sending a message to them.
Our general attitude toward prescription drugs is that they're going to make our lives happier and better. Pills are designed to treat medical problems, not to make life easier. [Adults think] you can use these things without consequences, and adolescents don’t see the long-term horizon.
[Among teens] there's a general note of, What's the big deal? They're given by doctors, mom and dad use them, how harmful could they be? And oh by the way, they really do get me high. They work, and I can steal them right out of my own medicine cabinet. I don't have to go get them from the guy on the street corner!
Then how are teens getting their hands on the pills?
Sixty-four percent of [drugs come from] from a friend or relative. There are a lot of pills out there lying around. Sometimes [kids are] stealing from a friend. It's so pervasive and handled so causally in the home that kids can steal an entire bottle of pills and no one notices.
Take us through the drugs of choice -- what are the kids into these days?
Different cultures have different drugs of appeal. The general classes are
benzodiazepines (like Xanax and Valium), psychostimulants (Adrerall and Ritalin)
and opiates (Oxycontin, Vicodin and codeine).
The psychostimulants -- meds used to treat ADD and ADHD -- are big on college
campuses. They're widely available because many [students] are on them for
functional purposes to study. They’re dangerous because they can trigger manic
episodes and depression.
The most problematic class is the opiates. These are the painkillers, a giant
class. You name the painkiller, it's abused by kids.
Can you tell us more about the kind of trouble kids get into by abusing these meds?
The health risks are the consequences we are trying to address with teenagers already. Keep in mind, every unwanted outcome you can think of for a teenager -- unwanted pregnancy, STDs or violent acts -- you name the event, and you will always find drugs and alcohol involved. Just because it's doctor prescribed doesn't mean it's safe.
[Prescription drugs] can also trigger depression and manic episodes, and suicidal thinking. ... People often don’t even connect the fact that they were suicidal on Tuesday with the fact that they took a Xanax on a Sunday night.
[Other consequences] are intoxication, death... Many of these [drugs] are highly sedative. You don’t have to take much to stop breathing. They can easily cross over to a fatal dose without knowing it. These days when drug addicts die in my world, they die on prescription drugs.
So, if mom or dad is on medication, how can they convey how dangerous it is to take for fun?
Get a lock-down box: a plastic box with a lock on it. Send a message. Your alcohol should be behind a lock door, and your pills should be in a locked box. Nevermind they [might be able to break into it]; you're saying something about these substances when you do that. [You're saying] these need to be handled carefully. That’s really important and nobody does this.
How will we know if our own kids are popping pills?
There are almost no signs. That's the really difficult part about this. Mental health issues, including substance abuse in adolescents, have the same constellation of symptoms.
The things to know to watch for are changes in sleep patterns, appetite, their dress, [who] they hang out with... The number one sort of sign that something's going on is a sudden drop in grades; there's something going on.
If you suspect your kid has a habit, what's the best way to bring it up?
Do not go at it alone, because here's what you're going to get from your kid: "I'm fine." There's not a 15- or 17-year-old out there who is going to completely open up to their parents. Quickly get help if you have any signs that something's really wrong. Start at school. So many people think of the school as the problem, but the school is your friend. They're professionals with specialized training.
[When you] bring it up, say, "Maybe I've been remiss. I just became aware this stuff is being used by kids. I've been giving you the wrong message, this stuff is dangerous."
What's the one thing you want parents to know?
That [prescription drug abuse] is a much bigger problem than they know and that we're contributing to it by our causal attitudes.
I bet the kids would be allright if they were allowed to smoke pot.
Pot has no potential to wreck the liver, but almost every PharmaCreation prescription drug does.
Pot has no "upper lethal limit", like EVERY prescription drug does.
Occupy your drug laws. This is not what we want.
Hmm.... do we have to agree on everything? It looks like the way we are going so far. You mentioned kilometers so I don't know what country you are in but I've posted here on CZ that I believe that pot should be sold over the counter at Safeway (our large grocery store chain on the West Coast - USA).
Have never dropped acid but went to college during that era when Timothy Leary was doing it and encouraging others to do the same. LSD is not addictive. It was used unsuccessfully by the CIA in the 1950s as a truth serum on prisoners. When the kids got their hands on it it pissed off the Establishment - particularly that Watergate criminal Richard Nixon. Without LSD or a good availability of pot kids get into stuff like meth, and something they call "bath salts" (don't know what it is but evidently it causes physical problems). Teens as well as much smaller children are far smarter than adults give them credit for being. (Aborigine children when the Europeans arrived in Australia were taught to be totally sel-sufficient by age 3 to 5 - food, water and shelter. Our kids today are just as smart.) They also look at the f***ed up adults in our society and wonder what the hell it's all about. I don't blame them. I was a rebel as a teen, but not into drugs which weren't really available at that time. I did it later with alcohol.
Yeah the Establishment roars, give me my booze but don't let anyone else have pot. Sick, sick, sick.
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