Prescription Drug Abuse

Choosing a prescription drug rehab can be challenging for some families. Adolescent addiction treatment programs have been specifically designed to deliver big results to teens in need. Young adults who enter these programs with debilitating addictions to prescription drugs can emerge with the skills that can help them to stay sober in the years to […]

Prescription drug abuse can start for teens when they or another family member are written a legitimate prescription by their family doctor. Without proper supervision or secure storage of medications, teens may be tempted to experiment with the use of these prescription pills and inadvertently develop an addiction or, worse, overdose. The results can be […]

There are a number of different kinds of prescription drugs that are highly addictive and have the potential for abuse. These include opiate painkillers (e.g., OxyContin, hydrocodone), central nervous system depressants (long-term users of prescription drugs will risk health problems that include: Organ damage and failure, especially to the kidneys and liver Tolerance to the […]

“It’s not mine, Mom.” “I don’t know what it is, Dad. I’ve never seen it before.” These are likely the answers you’ll get if you find miscellaneous and unidentified pills in your son’s belongings. It can leave you in a nerve-wracking predicament. How do you figure out what type of pills your son is using? […]

According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, alternative medicine is an approach to one’s physical care that is used to replace the Western, pharmaceutical medicines that many American turn to as a first choice for their care. If an individual has […]

The US Department of Health and Human Services reports that about one in ten teenagers say that they’ve abused a sedative or a prescription painkiller (e.g., OxyContin, Percocet, Lorcet) without a prescription and for non-medical use. These data are based on information culled through a survey of 2,100+ young people under the age of 20 […]

Why are teens seeking out dangerously addictive painkillers like OxyContin and Percocet and abusing these drugs? Is it purely for recreational use, or is there another motivation? According to a new study out of the University of Michigan and published in The Journal of Pain, it’s not just to get high as many may believe. […]

A large increase in emergency room visits caused by stimulant prescription drug abuse has been noted, according to Newsroom. Top pills responsible for the rise in need for medical care include Adderall and Ritalin, but it’s not necessarily those who are using their prescription correctly who are ending up in the hospital. Rather, those who […]

Do you have prescription medications in your home? If you answered “yes,” do you also have a teen at home? If so, then you need to make every effort to ensure that your prescription medications cannot be accessed by your child. Even if you think that your adolescent would never touch your prescription medication, it’s […]

The medications in your cabinet may be much more of a temptation to your teen than the drugs that are sold on the street corner or in the schoolyard. Prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications are often both used to achieve a “buzz” of some kind by teenagers. Why? They’re cheap or free, and they’re easy […]

A national poll conducted by the C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Michigan illustrates that most American parents don’t know when their kids are using “study drugs” to enhance their academic performance. The researchers found that only 1 in 100 parents believed that their child had experimented with “study drugs” (typically ADHD medications that are […]

Many scientists once believed in a direct correlation between the intake of ADHD medications as a child and the use of illicit drugs later in life. With the continual rise in the number of American children who are diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medications as a result, a new report that says that the aforementioned […]

The problem of abuse of ADHD medications like Adderall among high school and college students is becoming such a huge issue that a number of colleges are addressing stimulant medication abuse proactively, according to the New York Times. So many students are learning which symptoms they have to fake in order to get a prescription […]

The Partnership at Drugfree.org released the results of the Partnership Attitude Tracking Study (PATS) that revealed that prescription painkiller abuse is a huge problem among teens. In fact, 25 percent of teens say they have misused or abused a prescription drug in their lifetime. That marks a whopping 35-percent increase in the past five years. […]

When junior high school students who lived in rural areas and small towns received a brief intervention on the topic of prescription drug abuse, a recent study found that they were less likely to engage in abuse of prescription medications, according to the National Institutes of Health. For parents, this means it’s worth it to […]

Seizures were ostensibly the cause of the hospital admission and emergency medical treatment of Lil Wayne, a popular rap artist, a few months ago. TMZ reported that these seizures were drug related and may have been connected to a high amount of codeine in his system. He’s not taking the pills, however. If the lyrics of […]

A new study sought to determine how much of a problem intentional prescription drug abuse is among the teenage population in the United States. Utilizing data culled from poison control centers associated with the Researched Abuse Diversion and Addiction-Related Surveillance (RADARS®) System, the study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & […]

ADHD Medication Abuse: More and more children in the United States are receiving an ADHD diagnosis, and many take ADHD medications well into their teens. Unfortunately, as their bodies change, so does their body chemistry, and medications often stop working the way they once did. Though ADHD meds once worked to help them calm down […]

No longer is marijuana considered the gateway drug responsible for helping teens bridge the gap between experimentation with alcohol to hardcore use of needles and dangerous street drugs. Today’s gateway substance, says The Fix, could be prescription painkillers, because they are the number one reason for a recent resurgence in the numbers of teens addicted […]

When most parents consider the dangers of teen drug abuse and alcohol, they imagine their child experimenting with marijuana with friends or sneaking a bottle out of the liquor cabinet at home. Few recognize the drug addiction dangers that can come in the form of a legitimate prescription for a doctor—especially for medications designed to […]