Prescription drugs driving addiction crisis among US adolescents

A major part of the US drug crisis can be traced to legal prescription drugs in households, which other family members and friends find and misuse. This is according to two recent studies published in The Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. It is often adolescents and older teenagers who find and abuse drugs.

The first study determined the sources of prescription drugs that high school seniors commonly abuse. The researchers concentrated on three types of prescription medications – opioids, stimulants, and tranquilisers – and traced the sources of the drugs used by 18,549 students and assessed their motivation for using them. The second study determined the sources of prescription drugs abused by almost 104,000 adolescents aged between 12 and 17.

During the past year, about 11% of high school students said that they misused prescription drugs. Almost half of the group said they got their drugs from several sources, including friends who had prescriptions, family members, and others who had access to prescription drugs at home.

For adolescents aged between 12 and 17, the most common sources were friends, family members, and prescriptions from doctors to treat previous medical conditions. About 30% of the adolescents who abused prescription drugs took leftover medications that were still in the medicine cabinet at home. Girls were more likely to take leftover medications than were boys. Boys were more likely to get prescription drugs from their friends or buy them from other sources.