Prescription drug use is on the rise… BIG TIME!
Prescription pills are the number 1 killer of teens!
Prescription drugs are the Number 1 killer of teens… Number 1. This past year, for the first time in history, more teens died from prescription drug overdoses than from automobile fatalities. There is no sign that this trend is going to slow unless something is done.
The most commonly abuse prescription drug that lands teens in treatment, the ER, or the morgue is oxycontin, or oxycodone. Oxycontin is an opiod pain reliever that was originally created to treat cancer patients on hospice so that they could die without pain… Now pain clinics that dole this stuff out like candy are just as common in Florida as the marijuana clinics are in California. If you have cash and a sprained ankle, you can score some pain meds.
One example of the drastic increase in the abuse of pan medication is in Fairfield County, Ohio. In May of this year, opiod addiction accounted for 67 percent of patients in treatment, up from 4 percent in 2000! Hello, that is almost 17 times more patients due to one classification of drug! Red flag? I think so!
Another example is provided to us by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), who provide unparalleled data and research. The yearly number of Emergency Room visits linked to the abuse of prescription pain relievers rose from 144,644 in 2004 to 305,885 in 2008. That is a 111 percent increase. Yes, another red flag. Guess which drug was most common? Yep, oxycodone. Oxycodone related visits were up 152 percent over 4 years and accounted for 35 percent of the visits. Red flag. The number two increase was hydrocodone, up 123 percent. According to the CDC, ER visits for prescription drugs are just as common as visits for illicit drugs. Personally, I think they are more common, but then again, there are some very large pharmaceutical companies that are working very hard to not let all these numbers become common knowledge.
I would love for everybody to know how bad these drugs are… that they are the Number 1 killer of our teens! Please help me in spreading the word, talk about it with your peers.
Where do the kids get their drugs? Most teens say their parents medicine cabinets… Do you know what’s in your medicine cabinet? Go check right now and properly dispose of ANY medication that you are not currently taking. If you do take any narcotics, lock them up so that your children cannot access them.
If you know a teen that is abusing prescription medication and may need teen rehab, please give us a call. We are always here to help.
