TEEN PRESCRIPTION DRUG ABUSE RISING FAST, STUDY SAYS

Abuse of prescription drugs is "epidemic," with teenagers the fastest
growing group of new abusers, yet the problem has not drawn adequate
attention from health and law enforcement agencies, physicians,
pharmacists and parents, according to a study released Thursday.

Abusers of prescription drugs - 15.1 million people - exceed the
combined number abusing cocaine, hallucinogens, inhalants and heroin,
said the report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance
Abuse at Columbia University in New York. Of those, 2.3 million are
teenagers, but youngsters turn to prescription drugs at much higher
rates than adults do, the study reports.

Teens arrange "pharming parties" where they swap drugs they have
spirited from home or purchased off the streets or Internet, the report said.

"Availability is the mother of abuse," said Joseph Califano, the
center's chairman and former U.S. secretary of health, education and
welfare. "When I was young, my parents would lock their liquor
cabinet. It may be parents should be thinking of locking their
medicine cabinets."

The center's three-year study analyzed 15 national data sets,
collected information on Internet pharmacies and conducted original
interviews and surveys among doctors and pharmacists.

The tally of abusers of medications derives from the 2003 National
Survey on Drug Use and Health, the most recent in which participants
report their use. An abuser is anyone who reported using an
unprescribed drug or one taken only for the feeling it caused.

The number of prescriptions for controlled drugs and the number of
abusers far outstripped U.S. population growth between 1992 and 2002,
the study reports. The rise in prescriptions reflects that some
illnesses now can be treated by medication rather than by other
means, Califano said, "so there is not a perfect relation between
that and the rise in abuse. But there is enough to suggest there is a
relation."

"Add in that we're inventing more and better and more powerful drugs
of all these types all the time, and you have to see that there are
going to be more substances available, not fewer," he said.

The Washington-based Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America, whose members include major drug firms, "strongly supports
efforts that help prevent the dangerous and illegal practice of
diverting prescription drugs from their intended use," Senior Vice
President Ken Johnson said in a written statement. "Medicines cannot
help patients if they are compromised by misuse or by breakdowns in
the distribution system."

Some drugstore chains already have tightened controls over cold and
cough remedies , putting them behind counters or selling only to
adults. The study suggests broader remedies, including improved
monitoring by enforcement agents, having doctors routinely ask
patients about prescription drug use and improving training to detect abuse.