Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007

TRAGIC MISCONCEPTION

Teens think prescription pills, even taken at random and consumed with alcohol, are safer than street drugs — but they could be dead wrong

Heard the one about the trail mix parties teens have?

They grab a bunch of prescription drugs out of their parents' and grandparents' — and friends' parents' and grandparents' — medicine cabinets. And then they put all the pills in a big bowl.

And then they reach in the bowl and grab some pills at random and put them in their mouths. And then they wash them down.

Sometimes with alcohol.

Stupid, right?

Can't be true, right?

"Oh yeah, it's real," says Dr. Jefferson Jones, a Columbus family practice doctor and addictions expert.

And it's unbelievably dangerous. Teens are taking unknown drugs and mixing them with other unknown drugs — not counting the medications in their systems that they might already be taking for legitimate health problems.

For example, taking aspirin with the prescription blood thinner Coumadin can cause internal bleeding. Combining the allergy drug Hismanal and the anti-fungal drug Nizoral can produce a heart attack.

And a depressant like Valium and a narcotic like OxyContin can be deadly.

And the alcohol?

"Alcohol and barbiturates would be the worst thing you could combine," Jones says.

Sometimes teens call them Chex mix parties.

Ally and her friends called them "grab-and-go parties." Ally is in her twelfth rehabilitation program, this time with Teen Challenge in Seale, Ala. She's 17 years old.

So easy

According to a February report from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, one in five teens say they have abused prescription medications not prescribed to them.

More than 60 percent of teens say prescription pain relievers are easy to get from their parents' medicine cabinets, and more than half say pain relievers are available everywhere.

And a third of all new abusers of prescription drugs were between the age of 12 and 17.

OxyContin and Vicodin were their drugs of choice.

"I had a Columbus parent call me just the other day," says Teen Challenge program manager Rebecca Morfi. "The parent told me he opened his child's backpack and found OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Methadone. Imagine, four different powerful medications. I hear a lot of stories like that."

Debbie Josey, an addiction counselor at the Bradley Center in Columbus, says she has seen an increase of Columbus patients in the 15-17 age range who have gotten in trouble with prescription medicine.

"It's just so easy for them to get the medicine," she says. "Perhaps, a parent has had some surgery and just left the medication open. They find Web sites where they can order it off the Internet without parents knowing about it. There are kids who trade it back and forth. Teens also buy it on the streets."

Columbus drug counselor John Doheny still believes alcohol is the drug most abused by teens but says he's seen an increase in adolescents who have been abusing prescription medicine.

"I've been in this business for 25 years," he says. "For a while, it was all about LSD, then Ecstasy. What makes prescription medicines so attractive is the easy access. A kid can find Vicodin, OxyContin, Lortabs in their parents' or grandparents' medicine cabinet."