Their Drugs of Choice

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/H021005A.shtml

 

Their Drugs of Choice

By Daniel Costello

The Los Angeles Times

 

Monday 07 February 2005

 

Ryan Smith remembers the night, during his junior year of high

school, when a friend gave him his first Vicodin. " It felt so

incredible. I remember thinking, 'I am going to do this for the rest

of my life,' " he says.

 

Over the next year, Smith, now 22, and his friends moved on to

other pills - Xanax, Valium, OxyContin and the attention deficit

disorder medication Adderall, called " kiddie cocaine " for its ability

to be crushed and snorted. " At the time, it felt like I knew more kids

who were doing pills than who weren't, " he says of his Utah high

school days.

 

Daniel Smith, his younger brother, began using prescription drugs

the same way when a friend offered him Vicodin while watching a school

football game during his sophomore year. By that summer, he began

taking " weak painkillers " such as Lortab and Percocet. Finally, he

turned to highly addictive OxyContin, using it several times a week.

 

Although the brothers eventually went through an addiction

program, they never considered themselves " druggies. " They were using

pills safe enough to be used by millions of Americans, drugs both

legal and easy to get. Each generation typically finds a new illicit

drug to make its own: LSD in the '70s, cocaine in the '80s and Ecstasy

and heroin in the '90s. Today's middle and high school students are

experimenting with prescription drugs.

 

Their drugs of choice are those often preferred by adults. After

amphetamines such as Ritalin, they're turning to painkillers such as

Vicodin and Percocet, then sedatives and tranquilizers. With illicit

use tied to availability, California's share of the problem is

considerable. Californians account for 12% of the nation's population

and 8% of the nation's prescription drug use.

 

Nationwide, prescription pills have become a societal force.

Adults and children rely on them for a growing list of afflictions,

including anxiety, depression, even shyness, for which few

alternatives were available a generation ago. Nearly half of all

Americans take at least one prescription drug.

 

Meanwhile, direct-to-consumer drug marketing that touts new and

expanded uses has become widespread. Adults and children alike are

exposed to print, television and radio ads promising happier, more

fulfilled lives. For young people, experts say, all these factors

appear to have blurred the line between the benefits and dangers of

the medications.

 

As prescription drug sales have soared - up nearly 400% since 1990

- prescription medication has become the fastest-growing category of

drugs being abused, with the biggest growth of abuse among people ages

12 to 24, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health

Services Administration. After marijuana, prescription drugs are the

drugs most commonly abused by teenagers, the federal agency says.

 

Nationally, an estimated 14% of high school seniors have used

prescription drugs for non-medical reasons at least once in their

lifetime, according to a 2004 University of Michigan survey that

tracks drug trends among middle and high school students.

 

" It's a major concern to us that young people have the impression

they can use medicine as a party drug, " says Dr. H. Westley Clark,

director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the Department

of Health and Human Services.

 

The rise in prescription abuse - or " pharming " as young people and

drug counselors sometimes call it - worries treatment counselors and

drug research experts. A national push to reduce drugs such as

marijuana, cocaine and heroin has started to pay off, with overall

drug use among young adults declining slightly in recent years. But

abuse of prescription drugs - especially among younger people often

dubbed the " Ritalin generation " - has been growing and could grow

further as drug sales continue to increase.

 

" Pills are more seductive to kids because they see them as

cleaner, safer and less illegal, " says Carol Falkowski, a drug

researcher at Hazelden, a nationally known treatment center in Center

City, Minn.

 

Many younger users don't know what many of the drugs are for or

which pills are more addictive than others, Falkowski says. Nor do

they have much sense of what dosages are truly dangerous or how

separate drugs interact. Are four Percocets worse than two Vicodin?

Can Valium be mixed with Xanax? Treatment counselors say some young

users take a fistful of different drugs at once.

 

Data from the federal Drug Abuse Warning Network show that visits

to hospital emergency departments increased significantly from 1994 to

2002 for overdoses of drugs such as narcotic prescription pain

relievers and other medications.

 

Although the data isn't broken down by age group, overdoses of

hydrocodone, or Lortab, for example, rose 170%; overdoses of

oxycodone, or OxyContin, increased 450%; and overdoses of

benzodiazepines such as Valium and Xanax rose 41%. Data also show that

many were using more than one drug.

 

Easily Available

 

In face-to-face and telephone interviews with students at several

middle and high schools in California, students say prescription drug

use is frequently talked about at school but rarely discussed elsewhere.

 

Prescription drugs are often more attractive than other drugs,

they say, because the pills don't have the telltale signs of use, such

as the smell of marijuana smoke or the disorientation of being drunk.

 

Girls in particular appear to see the pills as " cleaner " than

other drugs. They're less likely to use marijuana or cocaine than boys

but equally likely to take prescription medications.

 

Some students see the pills as a way to enhance sports

performance. They say football players at some schools take opiates

such as Vicodin before games to blunt the pain.

 

Researchers say many teenagers don't even have to leave the house

to get high. In many cases, students filch drugs from their parents or

family members - or they abuse their own medications. It is not

uncommon these days, for example, for young patients to get

painkillers for a sprained wrist or after a trip to the dentist. " If

someone breaks their arm, kids will ask them the next day if they have

Vicodin or something else they can sell, " says Samantha Szelog, a

16-year-old junior at Malibu High School who says she does not use or

sell drugs. Some kids, she adds, make a considerable amount of money

selling their pills.

 

Many schools have sophisticated black markets with fixed prices

for individual drugs and dosages that vary according to supply and demand.

 

The most abused drugs largely mirror those that adults commonly

take, according to the University of Michigan survey. Most often

misused are amphetamines, such as Ritalin, which are abused by 15% of

students. Next are pain medications such as Vicodin and Percocet, used

by 13% of students last year, up from 6% a decade ago. Sedatives and

tranquilizers follow. They were used by 10% of students, nearly double

the number over the same period.

 

An 18-year-old senior and varsity athlete at Burbank High School

says she doesn't consider herself a " big druggie. " But about once a

month, when she and her friends can find some, they like to take

Vicodin, or " vikes, " after school or before parties. " I just feel

calmer on it. Nothing stresses me out, " she says. Her friends are less

cautious. They've also tried codeine, Valium, Percocet and Xanax,

sometimes mixing several at once.

 

A senior at Palo Alto High School, also 18, has been taking his

friend's attention deficit disorder medication, Ritalin, for the last

nine months. He started buying his own this summer and now takes

several pills nearly every day. Although he recently started having

problems sleeping, " I don't see it as a bad thing, " he says, noting

that he believes he has been able to study better on the pills.

" Nothing bad has come from it, only good. "

 

He adds that it's easier for people his age to get prescription

drugs. " You can't go around the house and find a bag of cocaine in

your parent's house, but you can find Vicodin, " he says. Both students

asked not be identified because of the illegal nature of their activity.

 

Students say prescription pills can often be less expensive than

other drugs such as marijuana and cocaine. Pain pills such as Vicodin

sell for around $5, depending on the dose, while stronger medications

such as OxyContin can cost several times that. Ritalin, one of the

most widely available drugs, sells for $1 to $2 a pill, students say,

but can be more expensive before midterms and finals, when students

use them to cram.

 

A Government Solution

 

Under federal law, it's illegal to possess controlled substances

without a prescription. But prosecutions for possession are rare,

especially when minors are involved. Many schools bar students from

carrying medications without a prescription, but enforcement can be

difficult.

 

Response from state and federal governments and pharmaceutical

companies, meanwhile, has been limited. Last year, the Bush

administration introduced an effort to control prescription drug

abuse, but most of the plan centers on reducing sales of narcotic

medications online or by doctors who write pain prescriptions too freely.

 

The Food and Drug Administration and the Substance Abuse and

Mental Health Services Administration have instituted a new print and

television ad campaign, " The Buzz Can Take Your Breath Away, "

highlighting the dangers of prescription drug abuse among young

people. And Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has introduced a

public campaign about the dangers of abusing the drug after reports of

misuse.

 

Makers of the other prescription drugs, including Vicodin's Abbott

Laboratories Inc., Valium's Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. and Pfizer Inc.,

the maker of Xanax, say they have instituted public awareness

campaigns about the dangers of prescription drug abuse, such as giving

doctors and parents brochures about monitoring the pills.

 

Many parents have yet to address the issue at home. According to

the Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University,

44% of parents believe that teens who abuse prescription drugs get

them from their parents - yet 71% don't take any precautions with

prescription drugs in their homes.

 

Ryan and Daniel Smith both recently completed a rehabilitation

program for prescription drug abuse. Now attending college in Arizona,

they say they're trying to keep each other from relapsing.

 

Both have been sober for nearly a year, and they've each started

part-time jobs and are dating. The two say they occasionally attend

narcotics anonymous meetings but don't like going because some of the

people who attend depress them.

 

" We weren't really druggies, " says Daniel. " We just fell into

something. The pills were all over the place. "

 

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