1 IN 5 TEENS ABUSED PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

NEW YORK -- The nation's teenagers are increasingly trying prescription
drugs such as Vicodin and OxyContin to get high, with the pill-popping
members of "Generation Rx" often raiding their parents' medicine cabinets,
according to the latest national study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free
America.

The 17th annual study on teen drug abuse, released Thursday morning, found
that about one in five teenagers has abused a prescription painkiller --
more than have experimented with either 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 survey, 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. For the first time, the 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.

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 trial dropped from 12 percent to 8 percent.

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 percent.

The nonprofit Partnership for a Drug-Free America, launched in 1987, is a
coalition of communications professionals aimed at reducing the demand for
illegal drugs.