Teens and Prescription Drugs

When taken as directed, prescription drugs can prevent and cure diseases. When used without a prescription or beyond what a doctor recommends, they can cause serious physical and mental health problems.

A growing number of American teens are using prescription drugs to get high. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, new substance abusers ages 12 and older use prescription drugs more than any other illegal substance.

Some teens fake symptoms to get a prescription or take someone else’s pills. Some mix medication with alcohol, or take more than the recommended dose of their own medication. Any of these instances of misuse can cause serious, even fatal consequences, including addiction, seizures, stroke, and cardiac arrest.

Many young people take prescription drugs because they believe they are safer than street drugs, but they can be just as dangerous if taken improperly.

Dangerous doses

A risky activity among some teens is known as “pharming.” Teens trade and mix prescription medications, then take a mix of pills, often with alcohol or cough medicine, in the hope of getting high. Some teens take several pills at a time. Others swallow them by the handful, often not knowing which medications they’re combining. Some teens who get high this way are counted among the 1.3 million Americans treated in hospitals each year for drug-related medical emergencies.

Open market

Prescription drugs are free and easy to find in parents’ medicine cabinets. Teens also can get them from school friends who have prescriptions for them or who have stolen them from relatives.

Teens also can get prescription drugs on the Internet through illegal Web sites that don’t require a prescription or a medical evaluation. There also are Web sites that provide information about how to get high using certain prescription drugs by themselves or in combinations.

Many teens are unaware that getting prescription drugs online or on the street without a prescription is illegal and can lead to arrest.

Reasons for use

Teens abuse prescription drugs for many reasons, including boredom, a desire to escape their problems, or simply to get high.

Talking with teens about healthy ways to cope with their challenges can help them deal with stress or unhappiness in productive ways.

If you believe your child could be using prescription medications for nonmedical reasons, speak with your child's health care provider or a mental health professional. Prescription abuse, especially if it involves addictive drugs, is hard for people to beat on their own. Most abusers need the help of a substance-abuse counselor to get clean.