What many people do not realize is that prescription drugs are equally or even more dangerous than typical illicit street drugs we’ve heard so long about. While many parents are doing everything they can to keep their children away from harmful street drugs like marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, ect, many are not even paying enough attention to there own medicine cabinets. Dangerous, powerful prescription drugs such as:
- OxyContin
- Ritalin
- Vicodin
- Percocet
These prescription drugs are becoming so common amongst adolescents and teenagers that at least 20% of high school seniors have admitted to taking at least one of these medications for non medicinal purposes.
Teen Prescription Drug Addiction on the Rise
While many hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine are on the decline for most adolescents around the country, teen prescription drug addiction is at an all time high. Adolescents and teenagers who use prescription drugs for other than approved purposes report to doing so for a wide range of reasons. Some of these may include:
- Taken recreationally to get high
- Many teens cite sleep problems
- Concentration lapses
- Excess pain
However, while many teens may be suffering from concentration lapses, or sleep problems, or even unbearable pain, this does not mean that any teen should take it into their own hands to self medicate their problem. If your teen is suffering from any of these problems and is not sure what to do, take your teen or adolescent to a doctor to get treated professionally.
Avoiding Addiction
While not all prescription drugs are known to cause addiction, a specific group of prescription narcotics have been known to increase dependency and can cause a severe addiction. If your teen or adolescent has been prescribed a high powered pain reliever for a root canal or tonsil operation, make sure to monitor your child if they are having any side effects to this medication. While even the most high powered pain reliever is completely safe if properly taken, by just adding a few alcoholic beverages or popping one two many pills can result in a coma or even death.
Watch Your Medicine Cabinets
Studies show that most teens that abuse prescription medications usually get these pills from their own parents medicine cabinets. It is not uncommon for many parents to have a multitude of high powered pain medications lying around the house in medicine cabinets or closets, etc. Many parents have had major surgeries or operations at some point in their lives and might not have finished all the pain medication that they were given. This puts your youth at risk for finding these high powered pills laying around and potentially abusing them.
As a parent take the first step to look through your medicine cabinets and any old drawers that might have old prescription medications and make sure to dispose of them immediately to prevent any possible abuse down the line.
