YOUTHS TRY PAIN DRUGS TO GET HIGH

NEW YORK - About one in five teenagers have tried prescription painkillers
such as Vicodin and OxyContin to get high, with the teens often raiding
their parents' medicine cabinets, according to a study by the Partnership
for a Drug-Free America.

The 17th annual study on teen drug abuse, released Thursday, found that
more teens had abused a prescription painkiller in 2004 than Ecstasy,
cocaine, crack or LSD. One in 11 teens had abused over-the-counter products
such as cough medicine, the study reported.

"For the first time, our national study finds 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 illegal drugs," said Partnership
Chairman Roy Bostock. "In other words, Generation Rx has arrived."

According to the study, the most popular prescription drug abused by teens
was Vicodin, with 18 percent, or about 4.3 million youths, reporting they
had used it to get high. OxyContin and drugs for attention-deficit disorder
such as Ritalin/Adderall followed with one in 10 teens reporting they had
tried them.

Fewer than half the teens, 48 percent, said they saw "great risk" in
experimenting with prescription medicines. "Ease of access" was cited as a
major factor in trying the medications, with medicine cabinets at home or
at friends' homes a likely source, the survey found.

It was only the second year that the survey had studied abuse of legal
drugs. In 2003, the Partnership grouped together three prescription pain
relievers -- Vicodin, OxyContin and Tylox -- and found that 20 percent of
teens had tried them.

The 2004 study looked at Vicodin and OxyContin separately but excluded
Tylox, and found that 18 percent had tried Vicodin and 10 percent had used
OxyContin. The 2004 figures indicated the same or a slight increase in use
compared with 2003, said Barbara Delaney, director of research at the
Partnership.

For the first time, the 2004 survey included a question about the use of
over-the-counter products to get high. Nine percent, or about 2.2 million
teens, had experimented with cough syrup and other such products, the
survey reported.

It also found that the number of teens reporting marijuana use declined to
37 percent last year, compared with 42 percent a half-dozen years earlier.
Over the same amount of time, Ecstasy use declined from 12 percent to 9
percent, while methamphetamine use dropped from 12 percent to 8 percent.

A University of Michigan study released in December also noted the apparent
growing popularity of OxyContin among teens. Dr. Mitchell Rosenthal, head
of the Phoenix House drug treatment facility, said his agency has watched
the use of painkillers by adolescents rise in recent years.

"Adolescents find the line between drugs that do good for you and drugs
that make you feel good becoming fuzzier every year," said Rosenthal.

The 2004 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study surveyed more than 7,300
teens, the largest ongoing analysis of teen drug-related attitudes toward
drugs in the country. Its margin of error is plus or minus 1.5 percentage
points.