PRESCRIPTIONS NOW TEENS' DRUGS OF ABUSE

While drug education programs have contributed to the decline of
illegal drug use among American youth, the abuse of prescription
drugs by teens continues to rise. In fact, according to a federally
financed study released last month by the National Institute on Drug
Abuse (NIDA) at the White House, illicit drug use by teens has
continued to gradually decline overall in 2007, but the use of
prescription painkillers remains popular among young people. So while
we have been fighting a battle to educate our youth about drug abuse
on one front, another front has quietly opened and expanded.

The nation's education programs on drug abuse have had success in
shaping perceptions of street drugs and those that abuse them. We've
seen the use of amphetamines, methamphetamine, and crystal
methamphetamine decline significantly, while marijuana use has
modestly decreased from 11.7 percent in 2006 to 10.3 percent in 2007.
It seems that the message that these street drugs are illegal,
dangerous and potentially deadly has reached teens and had an impact
on them. The risks of abusing prescription drugs, however, have not
been communicated.

Education Gap

The Office of National Drug Control Policy reported in February 2007
that three out of 10 teens believe pain relievers are not addictive,
and 1/3 of teens believe that there is "nothing wrong" with
occasional abuse of prescription medication. Further, the 2005
National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported 47.3 percent of teens
obtained pain relievers from friends for free; 10.2 percent took them
from a friend or relative without permission; and 10 percent bought
them from a friend or relative. These findings suggest that there is
a perception that misusing prescription drugs is safer than using street drugs.

One possible explanation for this phenomenon is the current
proliferation of over-the-counter and prescription drugs used at all
levels of our society. The increased use of these medications by
parents, role models and other authority figures sets a tone for
teens and shapes their opinions. Another factor that influences teens
is accessibility. These drugs are available at their local pharmacy
or in the family medicine cabinet; if they are legal and readily
available they are viewed as trustworthy.

The need to broaden the front lines of the drug education battle to
include prescription and over-the-counter medicines is substantiated
by the development and expansion of the survey used by NIDA over the
course of its 33 years. NIDA began its Monitoring the Future study in
1975 to survey the use of drugs by 12th-grade students. A significant
development occurred in 1991 when the survey was expanded to include
eighth- and 10th-graders. Revisions to the survey over the last five
years have alerted us to the wider view of drug abuse that we must
now consider.

The 2007 survey reported that the proportion of eighth-graders
reporting use of an illicit drug at least once in the 12 months prior
to the survey has fallen to 13 percent from 24 percent, a drop of
nearly half. While this is certainly encouraging news, we're also
facing the more somber news that at least one in every 20 high-school
seniors has taken OxyContin, a powerful narcotic drug, in the past
year. The percentage of students using Vicodin was 2.7 percent, 7.2
percent and 9.6 percent in eighth, 10th and 12th grades, respectively.

So our mission is clear.

We are winning the battle against certain illegal drugs. But, if
teens are just switching to alternative sources, what have we really gained?

Take a New Tack

Current government education programs are merely shifting teens from
illicit street drugs towards prescription and over-the-counter drugs
because the latter are more accessible, easier to ingest, legal, and
seen as safe when used widely and openly by authority figures such as
parents. Authority figures taking drugs should be aware of any impact
their use may be having on impressionable youth that surround them.
Teens may simply be taking the path of least resistance, both
physically and mentally.

What is required is a focus on the underlying root of the problem. We
must concentrate on decision-making, judgment, critical thinking and
how, why, and under what conditions teens make behavioral choices.
The key to success lies in teaching youth how to think rather than
what to think. This learning must occur with great attention paid to
the context of teens' real life experiences, the stresses and
resources at their disposal and the unique physical and emotional
characteristics of this demographic.