PRESCRIPTION DRUG USE UP AMONG TEENS

Prescriptions, Drugstore Items Easy to Get, Give False Sense of Safety

They find them in the medicine cabinet, on the Internet and even at
gatherings called "pharming" parties.

They continue using them because they're the easiest kind of high:
virtually invisible to parents and teachers. Young teens nationwide
are increasingly turning away from traditional illicit drugs like
marijuana and meth and instead abusing over-the-counter and
prescription medications, according to a national survey on teen drug
use released at the White House this week.

And the abuse is starting in middle school, younger than some parents
may have thought, according to the study, conducted by the University
of Michigan Institute for Social Research.

Local drug treatment centers and school district educators say such
national reports underscore what they're seeing on school campuses
and what they're hearing from kids about weekend parties.

Substance abuse specialists talk of children who swap Adderall, a
medicine for attention-deficit disorder, like baseball cards.

"I had someone taking a relative's heart medicine," said Sabina
Stern, program coordinator of the Collin County Substance Abuse
Program. "With some kids it's more common than marijuana. What's most
stunning about it is teenagers don't really know what they're taking.
Somebody says, 'Here, take a pill, and you'll like how it makes you feel.' "

Painkillers, stimulants The national study points to painkillers
OxyContin and Vicodin, sedatives like Xanax and stimulants like
Adderall and Ritalin. One in 10 teens reported using Vicodin for
nonmedical purposes within the last year. Use of OxyContin has
increased about 30 percent since 2002. Many local agencies and school
districts don't keep statistics on prescription drug use among
students. But anecdotal evidence has been enough for some to launch
powerful anti-drug efforts.

In Plano ISD, high school parents learn how to search their
children's bedrooms for drugs. A few years ago, campus security
officials added pills to the list of drugs that dogs can sniff out in
school lockers and cars. It's more difficult for faculty to determine
if a student is high on a prescription drug because many of the
symptoms - drowsiness or lethargy - can be mistaken for simply being
a teenager.

Lewisville school district trustees recently approved drug testing
for students in extracurricular activities to start in the spring. It
is one of the largest districts in the area to drug test. The
district will screen for more than a dozen over-the-counter and
prescription drugs, as well as marijuana and cocaine "We're seeing
more kids coming into the schools under the influence of these
drugs," said Regina Bennett, coordinator of the Safe and Drug Free
Schools and Communities Program in Lewisville ISD.

Ms. Bennett said she monitors reports from school resource officers
and teens who are part of a school district anti-drug task force. She
hears about parties where teens pluck from a bowl of assorted
prescription pills. It's called "pharming," a reference to
pharmaceuticals. Few DISD arrests In the Dallas school district, few
students have been arrested recently for using prescription drugs. Of
499 arrests last school year for drug-related offenses, just six were
for prescription drugs. So far this year, only four had been arrested
for such offenses through Nov. 30. But Dallas police and those in
adolescent treatment centers say they see more kids dabbling in
prescription drugs than in the past. Deputy Chief Julian Bernal,
commander of the Dallas police narcotics division, links the increase
to the easy availability of prescription drugs and stigma attached to
some "street drugs."

Kids in Dallas are particularly abusing Xanax, known as T-bars, he
said. "We're seeing prescription drugs in younger and younger kids,"
Chief Bernal said. "Kids are raiding their parents' medicine
cabinets. If the pill is already in the home, that's a pretty easy
enticement. "The other issue is, some kids are seeing their parents
taking the drugs legitimately, and they feel pretty comfortable that
it's not going to kill them." Ritalin and other drugs prescribed to
kids themselves also are frequently abused or trafficked, he said.

"Some kids are taking them from their brother or sister, or taking
their own medication and abusing it or selling it," he said. "They're
sought after, and you can make some money."

Some kids also are mixing prescription and street drugs, occasionally
mixing "cheese" heroin and Xanax, Chief Bernal said.

"We've talked to kids in the treatment programs for cheese, and
they're saying there are a pretty good amount of young children
starting with prescription drugs," he said.

Xanax: alone or mixed Michelle Hemm, program director at Phoenix
Academy of Dallas, a 32-bed private residential treatment center,
said she also has noticed an increase in Xanax use by youths.

Ms. Hemm said that kids are getting the Xanax on the streets, not
from their parents' medicine cabinet. The drug often comes from
Mexico, she said. She also has heard of teens of mixing Xanax with
black tar heroin. "They're making the drug more lethal than what it
already is on its own," Ms. Hemm said.

Ms. Hemm said detoxing from Xanax can cause seizures, making it more
dangerous than coming down from cheese heroin, a mixture of black tar
heroin and crushed nighttime cold tablets that took some Dallas
public schools by storm last school year.

Cheese has been blamed for the deaths of at least 23 area teens since
January 2005.

Mark Thomas, Dallas County's assistant supervisor in the juvenile
substance abuse department, said the county also has seen an increase
in the number of incidents involving prescription drugs, mainly with
Xanax and other depressants.

Middle school students are at particular risk for becoming addicted
to prescription drugs, officials said.

"Hormones are going crazy, peer groups are being formed, and they're
working so hard to find their own way," said Ms. Bennett of
Lewisville schools. And sometimes the anti-drug message isn't as
pointed in the younger grades. Shelby Jackson, a seventh-grader at
Plano's Bowman Middle School, remembers an anti-drunken driving
assembly that was held at the school this fall. The 12-year-old
blonde, whose teeth are lined with braces, also remembers that
chewing tobacco can cause gum disease.

But any messages about pills didn't stick with her. "What are
prescription drugs?" she asked her mother, who picked her up from
school Wednesday.

Shelby's mother, Janni, keeps a bottle of prescription painkillers on
her nightstand for a shoulder injury. She believes Shelby isn't the
type of kid who would swipe prescription drugs from the medicine
cabinet. But she isn't sure what Shelby would do if a friend from
school asked her to get high. "She likes to please people," said Mrs.
Jackson, 35, whose family moved to Plano from North Carolina this
fall. "Especially in a new school, when you're just trying to be accepted."

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WHY TEENS PREFER PAIN RELIEVERS

In a 2005 national survey of more than 7,000 adolescents, teenagers reported several reasons for abusing prescription pain relievers.

Easy to get from parents' medicine cabinets, 62%

Are available everywhere, 52% They are not illegal drugs, 51%

Easy to get through other people's prescriptions, 50%

Teens can claim to have a prescription if caught, 9% They are cheap, 43%

Safer to use than illegal drugs, 35%

Less shame attached to using, 33%

Easy to purchase over the Internet, 32%

Fewer side effects than street drugs, 32%

Can be used as study aids, 25%

Parents don't care as much if you get caught, 21%

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WHAT THEY TAKE

These are some of the prescription and over-the-counter drugs area educators say teens are abusing: .Xanax .OxyContin .Vicodin .Percocet .Valium .Adderall .Ritalin .Codeine-laced cough syrup .Tylenol with codeine .Cold medicines containing dextromethorphan, or DXM (Contac, Pertussin, Robitussin, Sudafed, Triaminic, Vicks Formula 44)