2008 Woodie Awards
Increasing illicit prescription drug use on campus
Joannie Yeh
Issue date: 7/16/07 Section: Pulse
Illicit use of prescription medication is rising at an alarming rate on college campuses, but few are hearing of it.
Students can't hear the alarm because they often think that prescription medications are safer than street drugs.
Physicians may be too busy signing prescription orders to notice it. Health educators don't appear to want to touch it. And pharmaceutical companies mask the alarm with advertisements of happy people.
A recent study by Sean E. McCabe, published in the Journal of American College Health, surveyed 9,161 undergraduate students at a large Midwestern research university.
The research team found that 14 percent of students had abused a prescription medication within the past year, more than the percentage of students who had used cocaine, ecstasy, inhalants, LSD, other psychedelics, crystal methamphetamine, heroin, GHB or Ketamine.
Prevalence of illicit use was 9 percent for pain medication (e.g. Vicodin, OxyContin), 5 percent for stimulant medication (e.g. Adderall, Concerta, Ritalin), 3 percent for sedative/anxiety medication (e.g. Xanax, Valium), and 2 percent for sleeping medication (e.g. Ambien, Halcion).
Feeding this trend is the easy access to prescription drugs from many different sources. 27 percent of students prescribed medication were approached to divert their pills, most of whom were prescribed a stimulant.
In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, Richard A. Friedman, MD, elaborates on the problem by quoting one eighteen-year-old saying, "I have friends whose parents are pill addicts, and we 'borrow' from them. Other times I have friends who have ailments who get lots of pills and sell them for cheap."
Another teenager assures that, "You can always find a doctor who you can convince that you have a sleeping problem to get Ambien or that you have ADD [attention deficit disorder] and get Adderall."
Dr. Friedman also finds that the teenagers he interviewed often perceived prescription medications as being safer than street drugs. He partly attributes the growing confidence in prescription drugs to pharmaceutical companies, because they "foster an image of prescription drugs as an integral and routine aspect of everyday life. Any adverse effects are relegated to the fine print of an advertisement or dispatched in a few seconds of rapid-fire speech."
Students can't hear the alarm because they often think that prescription medications are safer than street drugs.
Physicians may be too busy signing prescription orders to notice it. Health educators don't appear to want to touch it. And pharmaceutical companies mask the alarm with advertisements of happy people.
A recent study by Sean E. McCabe, published in the Journal of American College Health, surveyed 9,161 undergraduate students at a large Midwestern research university.
The research team found that 14 percent of students had abused a prescription medication within the past year, more than the percentage of students who had used cocaine, ecstasy, inhalants, LSD, other psychedelics, crystal methamphetamine, heroin, GHB or Ketamine.
Prevalence of illicit use was 9 percent for pain medication (e.g. Vicodin, OxyContin), 5 percent for stimulant medication (e.g. Adderall, Concerta, Ritalin), 3 percent for sedative/anxiety medication (e.g. Xanax, Valium), and 2 percent for sleeping medication (e.g. Ambien, Halcion).
Feeding this trend is the easy access to prescription drugs from many different sources. 27 percent of students prescribed medication were approached to divert their pills, most of whom were prescribed a stimulant.
In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, Richard A. Friedman, MD, elaborates on the problem by quoting one eighteen-year-old saying, "I have friends whose parents are pill addicts, and we 'borrow' from them. Other times I have friends who have ailments who get lots of pills and sell them for cheap."
Another teenager assures that, "You can always find a doctor who you can convince that you have a sleeping problem to get Ambien or that you have ADD [attention deficit disorder] and get Adderall."
Dr. Friedman also finds that the teenagers he interviewed often perceived prescription medications as being safer than street drugs. He partly attributes the growing confidence in prescription drugs to pharmaceutical companies, because they "foster an image of prescription drugs as an integral and routine aspect of everyday life. Any adverse effects are relegated to the fine print of an advertisement or dispatched in a few seconds of rapid-fire speech."
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