Teenagers and Drug Abuse: Lock Up Prescription Drugs in the Home

All families should keep prescription medicines under lock and key. Teenagers are very curious; even the kid you would least suspect of drug use may be tempted if it is very easy to access prescription drugs in the home.

When teenagers were chatting recently I heard one say: "My Grandmother has 30 Percocet left over in the bottle from when she broke her arm. I should bring them in." A girl with a brace on one of her injured limbs chimed in by saying "I have some left too, who wants them?" Every boy in the room was clamoring to get the drugs. I halted this particular conversation in Homeroom by announcing: "Let's stop all the drug talk. Percocet without a prescription could put you in a coma or kill you."

All I could think of when hearing their chatter was the evening I was summoned to the hospital in the middle of the night because a relative recovering from surgery had had a toxic reaction to Percocet given to relieve pain. Though normally totally lucid, the Percocet had triggered some sort of psychosis and all lucidity was gone when I arrived. It was an ardous, long night. Percocet is a toxic drug; thus hearing teenagers be so casual about using it was alarming.

Teen drug use is endemic. Conversations are full of drug talk and the innocent days of a little weed use by teenagers are long gone. Too many conversations about heroin, ecstasy, crack, and prescription drugs are just too common in schools today. Kids joke that "if I put my head down for even a second they drug test me."

I once saw an interview with an acclaimed actress who said that before rehab, when she was a junkie, that if a friend suffered an injury she would offer to bring treats over and then while visiting would pillage the bathroom medicine cabinet to steal prescription painkillers. So many adults fall into the lure of abusing drugs, for teenagers the risks are even higher as peer pressure is a potent factor in their lives.