TURNING PRESCRIPTION DRUGS INTO 'PARTY DRUGS'

From Sedatives to Narcotics, Students Search for New Highs

Getting his wisdom teeth pulled out his freshman year was a life changing
experience for one UC Berkeley student. Along with two holes in the back of
his mouth, he came out of the dentist's office with something much more
valuable.

Vicodin.

"I tried Vicodin with Tylenol and alcohol, and that was awesome," says the
junior, who asked to remain anonymous. "But then after a week, my parents
took away the bottle. I think they knew something was going on and that
something would happen if I kept taking it."

Since then, he keeps his eyes and ears open for anyone who might have the
drug-and indulges once in a while when he can.

Vicodin, a narcotic, is hard to come by, so he finds himself settling for
illegal drugs instead.

"Other drugs are a lot cheaper and easier to get," he says. "I mean, it's
college. It's Berkeley. You can pretty much get whatever illegal drug you
want. It's not like that with prescription drugs."

Narcotics, sedatives and other medications often enter student lives as
harmless prescriptions for wisdom tooth removal or insomnia-but they can
slowly become a part of student extracurricular life.

For some, these drugs offer ways of partying harder and faster in a college
environment where money is low and drinks are expensive. For others, these
medications are part of a desire to get a different high.

Jack, a UC Berkeley junior who asked that his last name be withheld, said
he mixes prescription drugs into a variety of "cocktails," producing
different types of highs.

He has experienced extreme nausea after taking morphine, as well as the
negative side effects from a 72-hour Fentanyl patch, a drug 40 times more
potent than heroin.

But despite the bad experiences, Jack enjoys experimenting. He recently
mixed Ketamine, which is an animal tranquilizer and very strong anesthetic,
Valium, morphine and Dilaudid, a strong painkiller for burn victims and
terminally ill patients.

"The Dilaudid hits you instantly and works in the time it takes for the
morphine to kick in," he said.

Jack obtains the drugs from "a friend who knows someone whose friend robs
pharmacies." Although the prices are much higher than the drugs usually
sell for, Jack says the high is worth the cost.

He admits his tastes are extreme-the most common combinations he sees
people using are mixtures of stimulants and alcohol or mixtures of
sedatives like Valium with alcohol.

"I know a lot of people who like the combination of Adderall and alcohol
because it makes you really talkative and you can drink like a fish without
getting retarded," he says. "And some people take a lot of sedatives to get
wasted a lot quicker so they don't have to buy as many drinks when they go
out."

Dr. Eric Heiligenstein, the clinical director of psychiatry for the
University of Wisconsin Health Services, found in a study of the use of
stimulants among college students that many use it to counter the
depressing effects of alcohol so they can drink more. But for many other
students the mixture of alcohol with Valium or Vicodin is more alluring
than stimulants like Ritalin.

Jay, a freshman student living in the UC Berkeley dorms, says combining
Vicodin or Valium with alcohol is common among his peers.

"One guy in my dorm was so out of control from mixing Valium and alcohol
and was saying so many frightening things, that his suitemate slept in his
bed with his cell phone next to him-just in case he had to call the
police," Jay says.

Mixing alcohol and different sedatives like Valium can be dangerous, said
David Presti, a UC Berkeley professor of neurobiology.

"The various sedative drugs work on the same brain neurochemical circuits
in different ways," Presti says. "It is dangerous to take combinations of
sedatives because you can get effects that are much larger than
anticipated. These synergistic effects can be fatal."

Although he has mixed Vicodin with alcohol before, Jay says he prefers the
drug by itself.

"I use it as an escape-which may say more about me than the drug itself,"
he says. "It alters the way I see things. It is a new experience and an
escape from boredom."

For Jay, coming to the college environment presented many more
opportunities to take Vicodin than he ever had before. Before college, his
only access to Vicodin was after a wisdom tooth surgery.

Now, he says he plans to get it from either a girl on his dorm floor who
has a parent who is a physician, or a football player who just had surgery
and was given the medication for the pain.

Nonetheless, Jay says it is still more difficult to obtain these drugs than
illicit drugs, making addiction less likely.

"There is less of an opportunity to get addicted to prescription drugs
because you never have a steady inflow of the drug unless you know a
corrupt doctor who can give it to you every week-and it is not like there
are any plants that Vicodin grows on," Jay explained.

Wanda Thrower, a drug and alcohol counselor for University Health Services
for 20 years, says she rarely sees students who are solely addicted to
prescription drugs.

Thrower says most students she counsels use prescription medication to
counter the effects of illicit substances. Frequently, students come in who
have mixed Vicodin or Valium with crystal methamphetamine, or Vicodin and
codeine with heroin.

"I normally see poly-drug users," Thrower says. "Some people with heroin
addictions will try to use prescription medications to 'detox' themselves
and sleep through withdrawls. I often see people using prescription drugs
to take the edge off other drugs."

Jay also says there is a lot of mystery surrounding prescription drugs
because of the lack of highly publicized information about them.

"I don't know how my body is supposed to react," he says. "With alcohol or
illegal drugs you know things like whether you're feeling a good high or a
bad high or whether you need to drink a lot of water while you're doing
it-like ecstasy.

"But with Vicadin, all I know is that my wisdom teeth don't hurt anymore.
Does that mean I am having a good or bad reaction? I don't know-but maybe
that is part of the appeal of doing prescription drugs."

The problem of drug addiction can best be addressed with more research,
education and readily available treatment, Presti says.

"The bottom line is that all these things alter the normal circuitry and
chemistry of the brain," he says. "It may take a long time for the brain to
renormalize-if ever."

While students may know the risks associated with abusing prescription
medications, some are driven by the age-old need to experiment while in
college.

For Thomas, 24, a UC Berkeley alumnus who asked that his last name be
withheld, experimentation included smoking Zoloft, an anti-depressant,
drinking Robitussin, and dabbling in numerous illegal drugs.

"You start seeing that a lot of things you have taken as real or true
aren't necessarily true, and this leads people to experiment with different
states of mind-whether it is with legal or illegal drugs."

One UCLA sophomore said his addiction to Vicodin began when he broke his
leg skateboarding. After a friend suggested mixing alcohol with the drug,
he says partying took on a new meaning.

"At first I would just take it with alcohol to get wasted faster," he says.
"Then I started mixing pot and alcohol and Vicodin and anything I could
find in people's medicine cabinets at parties."

But because of one New Year's Eve spent in the hospital, after drinking,
doing ecstasy and "crossing pills," the only drug he now touches is pot.

"At first it was like, 'Let's get railed,' and then it turned into 'Let's
see what happens when we do all these things together,'" he says. "I was so
sick and confused and paranoid I thought I would never come out of it."