High Life?
Are Your Prescription Drugs Getting Your Grandkids High?By Susie Vanderlip For Boomers & Beyond
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Party on the Pharm?Ever count the pills of OxyContin left in the vial? Grandkids visit and maybe grab just one or two; you’ll never notice them missing.
But Saturday night comes, and those missing pills are thrown onto a coffee table into a pile with the pills other teen friends have pilfered from family medicine cabinets. And it’s a free-for-all.
Many teens don’t get that prescription pills can kill or do brain damage. They gulp down two or three with a chaser of Miller Lite, and the pharming party begins.
Here’s a wakeup call for parents and grandparents: Commenting on the findings of a study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, journalist Brandee J. Tecson writes on MTV.com, “Gone are the days when teens used to catch their drug fix in the back of an alley or on a street corner. Nowadays, most are looking no further than their parents’ medicine cabinet to get high.”
This holds true for their grandparents’ medicine cabinets, as well.
Tecson cites a statement by partnership chairman Roy Bostock that “today’s teens are more likely to have abused a prescription painkiller to get high than they are to have experimented with a variety of illicit drugs, including Ecstasy, cocaine, crack and LSD.“ Tecson also points out that the Partnership’s follow-up research indicates nearly a third of teens believe that prescription painkillers are not addictive.
The Partnership study surveying 7,300 teenagers, says Tecson, “found that as many as one in five between the ages of 12 to 17 (nearly 4.4 million nationwide) admit taking prescription painkillers, such as Vicodin, at least once in the past year. One in 10, or 2.3 million, report taking a prescription stimulant like Ritalin, and another one in 11 (2.2 million) have abused over-the-counter medication like cough syrup to get high. The average age for users to start is now between 13 and 14 years old, and the younger a child begins experimenting with medication, the more likely they are to develop a drug habit.“
Unfortunately, the majority of our nation’s grandkids have witnessed a variety of adults model prescription use as well as abuse for them: Mom or Dad may take any number of antidepressants to ward off the week’s stress or any of a plethora of sleep aids; grandmoms and granddads are very likely to use a painkiller such as OxyContin to deal with the aches and pains of aging; and anyone having had a serious surgery is likely to keep excess opiate pills or unused skin patches in the medicine cabinet for that “rainy day“ when everything hurts!
And let’s not forget the myriad TV commercials that tout the wonders of prescription drugs multiple times, every day. Our grandkids clearly have been raised in a pharmaceutical grocery store where popping pills is the recommended and encouraged solution to all that ills us. No wonder that grandkids, especially teens, have gotten the message, loud and clear: No need to feel physically or emotionally uncomfortable — medicate. No need to acknowledge uncomfortable feelings and try to work them out by talking with a supportive adult. Besides, parents are rarely available and, if present, don’t have the inclination to deal with a teenager“Ä™s adolescent emotional roller coaster of feelings. So teens turn, as adults model for them, to what appears a safe and appropriate solution: prescription drugs. And they are so accessible in Mom and Dad’s and Granddad and Grandmom’s medicine chests!
“When adults and medical professionals treat medications casually, we need not be surprised that adolescents are treating them casually,“ says Dr. Francis Hayden, director of the adolescent mental health center at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City (as quoted in “Trading for a High,“ by Carolyn Banta, Time, July 24, 2005).
More than 15 million Americans have admitted to abusing prescription drugs, according to a 214-page report released in July 2005 by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Of that figure, more than 2 million are under the age of 17.
According to a later article by Tecson on MTV.com, “Teen abuse of opioids, depressants and stimulants has more than tripled in the past 10 years. The number of Americans abusing controlled prescription drugs doubled during the same period, spiking from 7.8 million in 1992 to 15.1 million in 2003, thereby surpassing the number of cocaine, hallucinogen, inhalant and heroin users combined.
“Substances most likely to be abused were opioids or pain relievers (OxyContin, Vicodin), central nervous system depressants (Valium, Xanax), stimulants (Ritalin, Adderall) and anabolic-androgenic steroids (Anadrol, Equipoise).“
Ever count the pills of OxyContin left in the vial? Grandkids visit and maybe grab just one or two; you’ll never notice them missing. But Saturday night comes, and those missing pills are thrown onto a coffee table into a pile with the pills other teen friends have pilfered from family medicine cabinets. And it’s a free-for-all. Many teens don’t get that prescription pills can kill or do brain damage. They gulp down two or three with a chaser of Miller Lite, and the pharming party begins.
These aren’t “bad“ kids; they are misinformed, undereducated, likely undersupervised and underguided.
Says Banta, “Prescription drugs are often far easier to obtain than illegal ones. Some teenagers come by their pills legitimately but trade them for others, like painkillers that hold more appeal because of their more potent high. Others order from shady Internet pharmacies where prescriptions aren’t always required. Still others take advantage of the fact that neither doctors nor parents tend to think of prescription medications as drugs of abuse. That makes it a fairly easy proposition to fake or exaggerate symptoms in order to persuade physicians to write prescriptions, or to pillage medicine cabinets for pills left forgotten on shelves.“
“Even more alarming,“ Banta continues, “most teens using drugs today are polysubstance users — they use multiple drugs at one time. They are likely to down an OxyContin and Xanax, washed down with a large quantity of beer — a seriously dangerous combination.“
As teens have told me in lengthy conversations after my appearances at school assembles, “I have friends who take a pill to wake up, another to get to sleep, one to hang with friends, another to pump up when working out, and maybe something to lose weight. I mean, they’re not addicts or anything; it’s just pills.“
Tecson includes a significant and relevant quote in her MTV.com article from Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA chairman and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare:
“Our nation is in the throes of an epidemic of controlled prescription-drug abuse and addiction. While America has been congratulating itself in recent years on curbing increases in alcohol and illicit drug abuse, and in the decline in teen smoking, the abuse of prescription drugs has been stealthily, but sharply, rising. Parents who do not want to become inadvertent drug pushers should consider locking their medicine cabinets.“
Grandparents, please take heed as well!
Tecson shares valuable insights from Tom Hedrick, director and founding member of the Partnership:
“Kids today are much more sophisticated than most adults are. We’re so behind the curve here.
“Instead of relying on word of mouth to get details about new ways to get high, teens are now relying on instant messaging, chat rooms and the Internet for their information. One teen can stumble across something, and within 36 hours, over 100,000 kids can know about it. Teens have this enormous urge to reach out and tell as many people as they can about what they find, and that can happen overnight, which is not the way we’ve seen the spread of drugs [in the past]. It’s a new era.“
Hedrick warns, “When abused or taken in higher doses than recommended, [these drugs] can be dangerous to the point of being lethal.” As Tecson points out, there are no hard statistics yet, but Hedrick reveals, “Most teens pop at least double the recommended dosage. As for cold medicine, some kids down two or three bottles in a sitting.“
From my own experience from talking with thousands of middle school and high school teens across America, I send out a plea to grandparents: Have a conversation about prescription drugs with your grandchildren— age 9 is not too young. You would be amazed, if not heartbroken, to hear the 11- and 12-year-old teens who have shared with me about explorations into drugs in order to cope with grief, loss and feelings of worthlessness from family problems and poor parenting. Help them as early as possible to understand appropriate use of prescription drugs, and listen and support them in expressing their hurting feelings.
Share with your grandkids why you take prescription drugs: for ailments. Explain that you are cautious about how many you take and what pills you take at the same time. The wrong combination can be lethal. Share that you never mix them with alcohol, an exceedingly dangerous mixture. Guide them to understand that it may look like prescription drugs are not dangerous, but they are designed for specific healing and not for getting high.
Let your grandkids know it is safe to talk to you about what their peers are doing, especially if it concerns them. Let them know that they are not wrong for having feelings and fears about fitting in, feeling lonely, sad or mad at Mom or Dad or friends. Let them know that they can ask you for help deciding what to do instead of turning to prescription or illegal drugs to cope.
Then, keep your prescription drugs in a less-accessible location than a medicine cabinet so teens are out of harm’s way. Throw out old prescriptions. Never underestimate the pressures of being a teen in today’s world. So many options are available to them. So many of their peers live unsupervised and lonely lives that getting high is highly appealing; and they prefer not to get high alone. Their peers may be inviting your grandkids to join them, not out of any malice; rather, out of friendship! Help your grandkids understand that real friendship doesn’t encourage danger and self-harm. It’s OK to say, “No, thanks, my grandparents wouldn’t like it.“
This article reprinted from the May/June issue of GRAND Magazine - The Magazine for Grandparents with permission by Susie Vanderlip, CSP, CPAE, www.legacyofhope.com
*Partnership for a Drug-Free America study, 2005.
About the Author: Susie Vanderlip, CSP, CPAE, is an expert in youth and family issues as seen on FOX NEWS LIVE and a nationally renowned professional speaker/author. She tours her original one-woman prevention presentation LEGACY OF HOPE® to middle schools, high schools, colleges, conferences, and community awareness events across the United States. She dramatizes the serious pressures on teens and families, including alcohol and drug abuse, irresponsible sexuality, domestic violence, self-harm, gangs and more. She uplifts audiences with concrete solutions and encouragement to both youth and adults. Vanderlip is author of the iParenting Award-winning book 52 Ways to Protect Your Teen: Guiding Teens to Good Choices and Success
