PHARMACEUTICAL DRUG ABUSE

Dawn Boyle
Last Sunday four people were killed in cold blood at a Long Island drugstore. The two accused of the horrific act were addicted to pharmaceutical drugs. Neither had a criminal background.

More than 1,800 pharmacy robberies have taken place across the country over the last three years, though few involved mass killings. Last year, the Suffolk County Police Department recorded eight robberies of pharmacies in the area it polices, which excludes some towns in the county. The one on Sunday was the fourth this year.

An inventory of drugs in the pharmacy showed that more than 11,000 hydrocodone pills were missing, officials said. Hydrocodone is the main ingredient in Vicodin. Also stolen were two other medications, promethazine and cheratussin, which are used in a recreational drug beverage called Purple Drank.

Prescription drug abuse is generally the same between men and women, except among 12 to 17 year olds. In this age group, research conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that females are more likely to use psycho therapeutic drugs for non-medical purposes. Research has also shown that women in general are more likely to use narcotic pain relievers and tranquilizers for non-medical purposes.

The number of teens and young adults (ages 12 to 25) who were new abusers of prescription painkillers grew from 400,000 in the mid-’80s to 2 million in 2000, according to a study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. New misusers of tranquilizers, which are normally used to treat anxiety or tension, increased nearly 50 percent between 1999 and 2000 alone.

A study conducted in 2006 found that teens between the ages of 12 and 17 who use stimulants such as Ritalin or products with ephedrine non-medically are more likely to have used other illicit drugs. About 70 percent of youths who used stimulants non-medically in the past year also used marijuana, compared with 12 percent of youths who did not use stimulants non-medically in the past year.

More than 71 percent of youths who use stimulants non-medically engage in delinquent behavior compared with approximately 34 percent of youths not under the influence of stimulant medications without a doctor’s supervision.

Almost 23 percent of youths who use stimulants experience a major depressive episode, compared with 8.1 percent of youths not under the influence.

Teens are also abusing other prescription drugs, including painkillers and depressants. In 2007, 2.7 percent of 8th graders, 7.2 percent of 10th graders and 9.6 percent of 12th graders had abused Vicodin. About 2 percent of 8th graders, 4 percent of 10th graders and 5 percent of 12th graders had abused Oxycontin for non-medical purposes at least once in the year prior to being surveyed.

In recent months a doctors office about a block away from our local high school had an arrest.Said doctor was accused of writing prescriptions for these drugs for apparent no need. Additionally, I learned what a pharm" party is and was told by a friend about someone approaching her grandmother after picking up her prescribed prescriptions at her local drugstore that she could sell her medically necessary drugs for a lot of cash on the street and fast.

It is truly a frightening time for our kids! All this makes marijuana look like a joke! Lock your medicine cabinets people, you don't want that mothers little helper to fall into the wrong hands!

Statistics used in this article come from the 2008 NSDUH Report: “Nonmedical Stimulant Use, Other Drug Use, Delinquent Behaviors, and Depression among Adolescents,” published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Office of Applied Studies.