Getting Drugs No Problem For Today’s Teens

Almost one in five teens recently surveyed said it’s much easier to purchase prescription drugs than it is to purchase beer, cigarettes, and marijuana. Another 25% of the study participants said marijuana is the easiest party drug to buy. It takes less than an hour to buy pot, according to 43% of the 17-year-olds.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University recently studied the ease of access to various drugs for children between the ages of 12 and 17. The research team, coordinated by Elizabeth Planet, director of special projects for the center, analyzed data gathered from 1,002 teens between April and June. It seems many parents don’t know where their children are during the day, and oftentimes even into the evening hours, a situation the research team suggests makes it very difficult for their children to say no to these tempting prescription and illegal drugs, especially with the influence of peer pressure involved.

Although about half the teens reported being out on school nights, only 14% of the parents knew their kids were out. When teenagers are out after 10:00 PM, about 50% of them say they’re with people who are smoking and using drugs. Of teens usually home between 8:00 and 10:00 PM, only 29% reported being around those behaviors.

Family dinners are important predictors of which children are more likely to indulge in drug use. Families who ate dinner together five or more times in a typical week were only 10% likely to include teens who’ve tried marijuana. When family dinners happen fewer than three times a week, the chance of trying pot goes up to 23%.

The prescription drugs most often misused by teens today include OxyContin, Percocet, Ritalin, and Vicodin, drugs that are common in most medicine cabinets. The center refers to parents who keep these medications in easy reach of their children as “passive pushers.” Joseph Califano, the center’s president and chairman, suggests parents lock up their medicine cabinets much like parents locked up their liquor cabinets a generation or two ago.

Stephen Pasierb describes today’s children as being a “very different generation,” entrenched in prescription drugs in ways today’s parents simply don’t seem to understand. Pasierb is president of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, says children think prescription drugs are safe but, when taken in the dosages that are needed to get high, they come dangerously close to consuming the amount required to overdose on them.

Source: Washington Post

Filed under: Adolescents, Drugs, Lifestyle, Medical Research, Smoking