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When we hear about our nation's "drug
problem," the vision that typically comes to mind is the street-corner
dealer, Colombian drug cartels or a 1980s episode of "Miami Vice." And while
our federal government recognizes and addresses those particular problems,
there is another killer of our children that has been much more dangerous.
Often hidden, this silent killer has already made his way into the homes of
many children. The killer typically attacks via our bathroom medicine
cabinets, or worse yet, is allowed to attack under the guise of a legal
medical prescription.
We're talking about the recent upward trends of prescription drug overdoses
that have recently become the silent killer among our children. We are
talking about controlled prescription drugs, including opiate painkillers,
tranquilizers and stimulants used to treat attention deficit disorder in so
many of our youth. While there have been cases of physician error, the data
from the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows the second most
common type of illegal drug use after marijuana is the non-medical use of
prescription drugs.
Once thought to be an "adult only" problem, it's not just adults who are
abusing these drugs. In the 2005 Monitoring the Future Report, 9.5 percent
of 12th-graders reported using the painkiller Vicodin and 5.5 percent
reported using OxyContin in the past year. Long-term trends show a
significant increase in the abuse of OxyContin from 2002 to 2005 among
12th-graders.
Like many trends in the past involving drug use and our youth, matters get
even more complicated when the popularity of a specific drug increases among
our youth. Recently across the United States, a new term common among high
school students is "pharming," slang term for grabbing a handful of
prescription drugs and swallowing some or all of them.
Many of these pills are not coming from crazed drug dealers, but directly
from the family medicine cabinet. Often, children will share these pills
among friends or distribute them to other students at school, without
realizing their actions are illegal and make them drug dealers. Web sites
are another common source for obtaining these drugs -- a few clicks and
young people can have drugs delivered to their doorstep, no questions asked.
These teens don't realize that prescription drugs, if used outside a
doctor's order, can pack a very hard, sometimes lethal punch.
So what can we as parents, educators and the community do? How can we
address this issue, with the end goal of saving young lives?
□ Stay informed. Visit our
Web site at
www.SCOSA.org, as well as
www.sarasotahealth.org and
www.theantidrug.com for more information.
□ Know the medications
in your homes and their quantities. If in doubt, keep medications under lock
and key.
□ Talk to your children
about the risk factors involved with prescription drug abuse.
□ Know who your
children's friends are, and ask to meet their parents.
□ Monitor the Web sites
that your child visits and do history checks on computers used by children
in
your home.
□ Look for the obvious
signs of drug abuse (slurred speech, staggering walk, sweating, nausea,
vomiting, numbness of extremities, dilated
pupils, drowsiness, dizziness).
□ If in doubt, ask
questions immediately. Seek professional assistance at your child's school
or from a
healthcare professional.
□ Meet with your
child's teachers and monitor his/her progress.
□ Know where your child
is when he/she is not at home, and who he/she is spending time with.
Now is the time for our parents and community to be informed, fight back and
attack this silent killer. We can wage war on prescription drug abuse and
let our children know we do so because they are loved and we care about
them.
Curtis S. Lavarello is the executive director of the
Sarasota Coalition on Substance Abuse, Inc.. Phone the Coalition at
(941) 922-7233.
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