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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 9 of 9. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by laima on February 14, 2007, at 20:25:36
I'm worried about this report- if this is indeed a trend, will it make it harder to get prescription drugs legitimately? I saw a similar report on tv a while ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Teens-Prescription-Drugs.htmlReport: Teens Abusing Prescription Drugs
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:41 p.m. ETNEW YORK (AP) -- Junior's been helping himself to Mother's little helper. That's the conclusion of a report released Wednesday by White House drug czar John Walters that found while U.S. teenagers' use of marijuana is declining, their abuse of prescription drugs is holding steady or in some cases increasing.
''The drug dealer is us,'' said Walters, the national drug policy director.
Walters said that many teenagers are obtaining drugs over the Internet, getting them free from friends or taking them from someone's medicine cabinet.
According to an analysis of national surveys prepared by Walters' office, 2.1 million teenagers abused prescription drugs in 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available.
While their use of marijuana declined from 30.1 percent to 25.8 percent from 2002 to 2006, use of OxyContin, a painkiller, increased from 2.7 percent to 3.5 percent over the same period. Use of Vicodin, another painkiller, increased slightly from 6 percent to 6.3 percent.
Teens are also abusing stimulants like Adderall and anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax because they are readily available and perceived as safer than street drugs, Walters said.
Walters said adults should keep track of prescription drugs and throw them out when they expire.
''People just aren't aware that they need to be careful, and so they leave prescriptions in the medicine cabinet and they don't think anything about it,'' he said.
The report is based on the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a survey of 68,308 families, and the 2005 Monitoring the Future Survey of 50,000 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders conducted by the University of Michigan.
Dr. Terry Horton, the medical director of Phoenix House, which operates nearly 100 substance abuse programs in nine states, said the belief that prescription drugs are safer than street drugs is false.
''These medicines cause dependence and addiction when misused and have the potential to cause death,'' he said. ''We're talking about medicines that are related, pharmacologically, to heroin and have very similar effects.''
Posted by Phillipa on February 14, 2007, at 21:46:36
In reply to prescription drug abuse report, posted by laima on February 14, 2007, at 20:25:36
Laima they aren't related to heroin if so how? Love Phillipa
Posted by Jimmyboy on February 14, 2007, at 22:58:01
In reply to Re: prescription drug abuse report » laima, posted by Phillipa on February 14, 2007, at 21:46:36
OxyContin and Vicodin are both opiates like heroin...
Posted by donut on February 14, 2007, at 23:31:34
In reply to prescription drug abuse report, posted by laima on February 14, 2007, at 20:25:36
Couldn't these statistics have been manipulated to paint a certain picture to fit an agenda? I have no doubt that RX opiates such as OxyContin are frequently diverted, but I don't think they are being doled-out like candy by doctors in the first place. As far as the abuse of benzodiazepines, I don't think they are nearly as common a find in the medicine cabinets of today as they once were. How many people have even heard of a bzd besides Valium? I've heard of abuse of stimulants such as Ritalin but again I don't think doctors prescribe them without much caution and risk-assessment.
I suspect the abuse of alcohol and illicit drugs (rather than illicitly-obtained prescription drugs) remains and shall remain a much more common problem.
Just speculation on my part.
Posted by med_empowered on February 15, 2007, at 2:53:23
In reply to Re: prescription drug abuse report » laima, posted by donut on February 14, 2007, at 23:31:34
just a couple thoughts....
1) "abuse" is kinda of a loose term that the DEA loves to exploit. For example: a couple weeks ago, I had a migraine from hell. I was out of Midrin. A friend gave me a Vicodin. I didn't have an RX, and I got the Vicodin from a friend..that's abuse. Does it matter that I only took 1/2 a pill? No. Its abuse.
2) Don't ever trust the DEA. Ever. These people get million$ to "fight drugs". Now, the War On Drugs has been going on since Nixon, and we're not winning. We've locked up lots of poor people and minority people, and we've eaten away at civil liberties in the US, but the war is not won. The war on RX drugs? That's going to be much easier to "win" since the DEA controls these drugs anyway, and since so much of the medical establishment has already bought into the addiction/drugs are bad dogma. So they can get visible "results" (reduced prescribing of certain drugs) without actually HELPING anyone--basically, they'll screw over patients, scare doctors, and reduce the quality of healthcare while reducing privacy and calling it all "progress".
I think it will be harder to get pain meds. In the 70s, they went after amphetamines--rxing went down. Now some states track individual rxs by patient in databases. Some even want to track by dosage, so if the DEA thinks your doc is giving you too much of a controlled substance, they might "suggest" a doc lower it a bit (much as they might "suggest" a doc may want to keep his/her license)."Drug Abuse" has been the biggest excuse ever for the government to use resources and violate privacy. When the first anti-drug laws were passed, some lawmakers voted against it--after all, how ridiculous was it to regulate what someone could or could not put in their bodies? Its been downhill from there, and now the US imprisons a higher percentage of its population than most other industrialized countries. I guess the DEA got tired of going after minorities and poor people and decided to zero in on people in pain, people suffering from anxiety, and the doctors who dare to help them. I guess they just haven't suffered enough.
Posted by laima on February 15, 2007, at 8:38:53
In reply to Re: prescription drug abuse report » laima, posted by donut on February 14, 2007, at 23:31:34
Actually, I hear people toss the words "xanax" and "klonopin" around quite a bit- they do not apppear to be that uncommon.Where I live it's a pain in the you-know-what to deal with stimulant prescriptions as it is, with the 7-day expiration on scripts, no refills, show driver's liscence, etc. I wouldn't want it to get worse, to the point doctors are reluctant to even prescribe any of these medications.
> How many people have even heard of a bzd besides Valium? I've heard of abuse of stimulants such as Ritalin but again I don't think doctors prescribe them without much caution and risk-assessment.
Posted by laima on February 15, 2007, at 8:41:13
In reply to Re: prescription drug abuse report, posted by med_empowered on February 15, 2007, at 2:53:23
"Abuse" as the law enforcement people figure it seems to mean "no prescription" in this case. I'm hoping that whatever trends they are perceiving, this doesn't make it harder and rarer for people to get prescriptions legitimately.
Posted by dbc on February 15, 2007, at 11:40:58
In reply to Re: prescription drug abuse report » med_empowered, posted by laima on February 15, 2007, at 8:41:13
Oxycontin abuse is much higher than those figures estimate and so is adderall amongst college aged kids. Almost anyone can buy oxycontin at $1 per mg right now, its as common as marijuana in major cities. Xanax while is used quite a bit in conjunction with booze there isnt much recreational value to benzos on their own so its just not that popular.
What do all three of these drugs have in common? Name recognition, they all three have been hyped by the media. I could find your average stimulant abusing college student and offer him/her an adderall, a dexedrine or a desoxyn and he/she would choose the adderall. (i've seen this proven in real life trust me)
Posted by kaleidoscope on February 16, 2007, at 16:03:03
In reply to Re: prescription drug name recognition, posted by dbc on February 15, 2007, at 11:40:58
If the US media hadn't whipped up such a ludicrous amount of hysteria RE OxyContin, far less people would be taking it for recreational purposes.
This is the end of the thread.
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