Prescription Drug Abuse

One in three Americans are prescribed opioids from their doctor. Once someone is prescribed a medication and take it daily, as told to do so by the doctor, it is extremely easy to become dependent on the pills. Dependency on a drug means that the body physically craves it and may experience withdrawals when the prescription is stopped. Addiction characterizes as a mental need for the drug. The behavior changes and abusing the medication will begin.

A new escalating drug abuse epidemic has come about in the recent years; people are now choosing prescription pills as their new drug of choice. The use, abuse and death caused by prescription drugs has increased significantly within the past couple years. All types of prescription pills are more easily accessible from their doctors, family members or off the street. Doctors are handing out prescriptions for pills, such as pain management pills, muscle relaxers, and anti-anxiety, like they are candy and not potentially dangerous to the consumers. In today’s society doctors are over prescribing pills to Americans and the prescription pill distribution should be more closely monitored and controlled. Although there are people who benefit

This article talked about the rise in drug poisoning in children ages fifteen to nineteen. Different studies are showing alarming numbers of children that have intentionally taken medications in other ways than they are prescribed. There is a rise of the number prescribed medications in the United States. More households contain prescribed medications for multiple things. All of these medications are easily accessible to teens. More than half of the teens that reported misusing prescription drugs, also stated that they can easily get their hands on these

Millions of people throughout the world are taking drugs on a daily basis. If you were to ask someone why they take prescription drugs, most people would be taking them for the right reason. However, it’s estimated that twenty percent of people in the United States alone have used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons.1 Prescription drug abuse is a serious and growing problem that often goes unnoticed. Abusing these drugs can often lead to addiction and even death. You can develop an addiction to certain drugs that may include: narcotic painkillers, sedatives, tranquilizers, and stimulants.1 Prescription drugs are the most common abused category of drugs, right next to marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and

The article, Prescription Drug Abuse: An Epidemic Dilemma, explains the significant increase in prescription drugs among youths, and drug-impaired driving. The research was conducted by Robert L. DuPont (it was published in 2010); his research produces useful knowledge since raises awareness of prescription drug abuse. Although the research article displays strengths, it also displays weaknesses.

Teens are highly affected by drugs around the world but training has begun to stop it. Along with brain damage and lung damage. Countless teens around the world use drugs for social advantages.The United States represents 5% of the world's population and 75% of prescription drugs taken. 60% of teens who abuse prescription drugs get them free from friends and relatives. Doctors are already trained to find ways to help.If teens smoke too much it can cause them to die or overdose.

From the article Prescription Drug Abuse: A Comparison of Prescriber and Pharmacist Perspectives, “Approximately, 20% of the U.S. population aged 12 and older has abused a prescription drug at least once in their lifetimes.” This evidently shows that within prescription drug abusers, there are high schoolers who abuse the system. From the NSDUH, National Survey on Drug use and Health, 91% of teen prescription drug abuse obtain the drug from friends, family and mostly prescribers. Thus showing that prescribers and pharmacist, whether they know it or not, are involved with the distribution of the all the prescription drug abuse. By prescribing these drugs to their patients, they are responsible for watching over them and assuring that they use it for appropriate reasons,.Throughout the time the number of prescription drugs that have left pharmaceutical labs has increased over the last two decades, more than 136 million drugs for the common opioid pain killer. Due to the steady increase in the prescription drugs and the attempt to observe the problem, countries would support a system to monitor prescription

The recommendations of the article are therefore useful in concluding a study or exploring future areas of research. 4. Jafari, S. (2014). Prescription medication abuse. BC Medical journal, 56(2), 92-93. Jafari (2014) specifically focuses on the issue of misuse of prescription painkillers. Terming it as an urgent issue, the author systematically accounts for the total number of fatalities in Ontario, noting that drug abuse killed more individuals than HIV. Jafari uses data from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in presenting statistics to show the significance of the issue. In addition, Opioid abuses as well as other emerging addictions specifically in the young population are also expounded. The author cites the process of obtaining the drugs as a plethora of activities by unscrupulous individuals in the society. In the conclusion, the author proposes for a dedicated system to counter prescription drug abuse among individuals; as well as additional mechanisms to monitor the chief distributors of the drugs. This is therefore a relevant article in our research. 5. Jena,

The rate of teens misusing heroin has sky rocketed by 80% in 1999 to 2009. Also 23% of teens who try heroin will get addicted. This is very surprising to me because I have a 15-year-old brother who could have friends who are curious on trying this drug and many other drugs. For kids who are curious they could add salt to gel hand sanitizer by doing this you can extract ethyl alcohol which contains proof of 120, with only a few shots you could end up in the hospital. It also surprises me how each day at least 1,600 teens begin abusing prescription drugs. In the article it states, “12-17 year olds abuse prescription pills more than ecstasy, heroin, crack/cocaine, and methamphetamines combined.” since it’s so easy to get over the counter drugs teens have a more possible chance of getting addicted to this type of

Prescription drug abuse is a problem that is not just focused on adults. There has been a substantial rise in prescription drug abuse among teenagers. Teens are abusing prescription drugs for a number of reasons, including to get high, pain treatment, and/or because they think that it will assist them with school work (Coalition against Drug Abuse, 2014). However boys and girls tend to abuse some types of prescription drugs for different reasons. For example, boys are more likely to abuse prescription stimulants to get high, where girls would abuse them to stay alert to study or for weight loss.

Medicine has been around for thousands of years and has diversified and given us many options to treat illness or pain. Some are available as over-the-counter drugs that can be purchased almost anywhere and others require you to get a prescription from your doctor in order to get it. Some of these drugs that require a prescription often help people who deal with chronic pain, those who are at the end of their life, or cancer patients. Unfortunately these drugs, although helpful to those who need them, are being abused by millions of Americans every year. With doctors prescribing ludicrous amounts of prescription drug, sometimes when it is not even necessary, and our lack of knowledge on the subject, prescription drug abuse has become a big

Opioid exposure and use in the United States is increasing among adolescents. McCabe and associates (2017) specifically examine medical and non-medical opioid use among adolescents. Monitoring the Future study provided the data that was used. Forty cohorts of high school seniors ranging from 2181 to 3791 participants were administered in the form of paper-and-pencil questionnaires in the student’s classroom setting. Results demonstrated among adolescents that claimed to have use both medical and nonmedical consumption of prescribed opioids indicated that medical use of opioids began before nonmedical use. Prescribing patterns of physicians need to be examined to aid in alleviating medical use of opioids from progressing to nonmedical usage.

Even though people need their prescriptions, the abuse of them is getting out of control and we need to find a way to regulate it better,because it can destroy a family, cause some to become addicted, or even kill them. Prescription drugs are no joke, they can be worse than illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and even heroin. The only difference is a doctor can prescribe these types of drugs. The problem we run into with prescription drugs is there is not enough being done to keep the person from becoming addicted or them selling to others. In 2007 2.5 million Americans abused just painkillers (Drug free world). That is not even including the other two types. Now it is starting to affect teens, one out of every ten teenagers admit to abusing a prescribed drug(Drug-free world).

Prescription drug abuse is an ongoing problem in rural teens. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health suggests that 13% of teens between the ages of 12-17 have experimented with nonmedical prescription drugs at some point in their lives. Researchers have identified several factors linked with nonmedical prescription drug use such as their school enrollment status, history of depression, and a two parent household presence (Gever, 2010).

To illustrate the magnitude of the research problem and provide a frame of reference, this section begins with a brief overview of the increased use of pharmaceuticals and prescription drug abuse in the US. The section continues with the relationship between illicit drugs and prescriptions, adolescents’ abuse, personal and social factors; then concludes with the theoretical approach. The Social-Ecological Theory, will be applied in researching prescription drug abuse, possible influences and protective factors in adolescents in relation to prescription drug abuse, to develop focused intervention strategies and educational programs for this population, similar to other substances such as tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana.