Rise in Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse Impacting Teens
Prescription drug abuse among teens has become one of the fastest growing drug problems in the US. According to a national survey, over 5,700 youth first misused prescription pain relievers in 2014 without a doctor's guidance. This is profoundly affecting teenagers' lives. Prescription drugs can have both short and long term health consequences similar to cocaine, heroin, and meth when misused. They impact brain development which continues during adolescence. Education, safe storage and disposal of medications, and prescription drug monitoring programs can help address this important issue.
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Rise in Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse Impacting Teens (1)
Rise in Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse Impacting Teens
Prescription drug abuse among teens has become one of the fastest growing drug problems in the US. According to a national survey, over 5,700 youth first misused prescription pain relievers in 2014 without a doctor's guidance. This is profoundly affecting teenagers' lives. Prescription drugs can have both short and long term health consequences similar to cocaine, heroin, and meth when misused. They impact brain development which continues during adolescence. Education, safe storage and disposal of medications, and prescription drug monitoring programs can help address this important issue.
Rise in Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse Impacting Teens
Prescription drug abuse among teens has become one of the fastest growing drug problems in the US. According to a national survey, over 5,700 youth first misused prescription pain relievers in 2014 without a doctor's guidance. This is profoundly affecting teenagers' lives. Prescription drugs can have both short and long term health consequences similar to cocaine, heroin, and meth when misused. They impact brain development which continues during adolescence. Education, safe storage and disposal of medications, and prescription drug monitoring programs can help address this important issue.
Rise in Prescription Drug Misuse and Abuse As with any type of mind-altering drug, prescription drug
misuse and abuse can affect judgment and inhibition,
Impacting Teens putting adolescents at heightened risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, misusing other kinds of drugs, and engaging in additional risky behaviors. The fastest-growing drug problem in the United States isn’t cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamines. It is prescription drugs, and it is profoundly affecting the lives of teenagers. Solutions: Here are several ways to minimize prescription According to National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) drug misuse and abuse among young people: DrugFacts, prescription drug misuse and abuse is when someone takes a medication inappropriately (for example, without a prescription). Sadly, prescription drug misuse and abuse among young people is not an insignificant problem. According to National Survey on Drug Use and Education: One in four teenagers believe that Health (NSDUH) data on youth and young adults, more prescription drugs can be used as a study aid and than 5,700 youth in 2014 reported using prescription pain nearly one-third of parents say that they believe relievers without a doctor’s guidance for the first time. that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medication can improve a child’s A common misperception is that prescription drugs are academic or testing performance, even if that safer or less harmful to one’s body than other kinds of child does not have ADHD. Parents, children, and drugs. However, there is a range of short- and long-term prescribers must be educated on the impact of health consequences for each type of prescription drug prescription drugs on the developing brain. used inappropriately:
Stimulants have side effects in common with
cocaine, and may include paranoia, dangerously high body temperatures, and an irregular Safe medication storage and disposal: heartbeat, especially if stimulants are taken in Two-thirds of teens who misused pain relievers large doses or in ways other than swallowing a in the past year say that they got them from pill. family and friends, including their home’s medicine cabinets, making it important to safeguard medicine in the home, according to the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids. Safe storage and disposal of medications diminish Opioids, which act on the same parts of the opportunities for easy access. brain as heroin, can cause drowsiness, nausea, constipation, and, depending on the amount taken, slowed breathing.
Prescription drug monitoring: Many people are
calling on doctors and pharmacies to better monitor how (and how often) drugs are Depressants can cause slurred speech, shallow prescribed. Doctors more readily hand out breathing, fatigue, disorientation, lack of prescription painkillers than they did ten years coordination, and seizures upon withdrawal from ago, and, according to some sources, chronic use. pharmacists do not habitually check prescription drug registries, which help to identify potential over-prescribing and misuse.
These impacts can be particularly harmful to a developing
adolescent brain and body. Our brains continue to develop until we reach our early- to mid-twenties. During In addition, educating adolescents and their parents about adolescence, the pre-frontal cortex further develops to the risks of drug misuse and abuse can play a role in enable us to set priorities, formulate strategies, allocate combating the problem. The National Institute on Drug attention, and control impulses. The outer mantle of the Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of brain also experiences a burst of development, helping us Health (NIH), created the website NIDA for Teens: The to become more sophisticated at processing abstract Science Behind Drug Abuse to educate teens, their information and understanding rules, laws, and codes of parents, and teachers on the science behind prescription social conduct. Drug use impacts perception—a skill drug misuse and abuse. Developed with the help of teens adolescent brains are actively trying to cultivate—and can to ensure relevance, NIDA scientists created a site that fracture developing neural pathways. Additionally, as our delivers science-based facts about how drugs affect the brains are becoming hardwired during adolescence, the brain and body so that young people will be armed with pathways being reinforced are the ones that stick. If those better information to make healthy decisions. pathways include addiction, the impact may lead to life-long challenges.