The Danger Hiding in Your Cabinets

Unused prescription drugs present a temptation to teens interested in experimentation. Your unused pain medications may seem safe to your teen because they were prescribed by a doctor, or because they've seen you use them. To compound the misperceptions, more than one-quarter of parents believe that abusing prescription drugs is safer than abusing street drugs. However, prescription drug misuse can result in a tremendous amount of unwanted consequences, especially among teens.

Where Do They Get the Drugs?

The easiest place they can. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA), at least “two-thirds of teens who misused pain relievers in the past year say that they got them from family and friends, including their home’s medicine cabinets.”

Some of the prescription drugs that teens most often misuse include opioids, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone (Vicodin); Central Nervous System depressants, like diazepam (Valium), or alprazolam (Xanax); and stimulants, like methylphenidate (Ritalin) and amphetamine or dextroamphetamine (Adderall), according to Nemours TeensHealth. There are many reasons young people might misuse prescription drugs, including:

• To combat depression/anxiety
• Peer pressure and the desire to fit in
• To follow what they see their parents doing
• Boredom
• In hopes of focusing better for school or other tasks
• And more

So, to your teen, sneaking from your bottle of pills is a way to either get high for free or deal with any variety of issues they are facing.

Coordinated Efforts?

There’s a great deal of speculation in the research literature about Pharming Parties — a gathering where participants bring contributions of pills and combine them to create a “pill buffet” with other party-goers. The Urban Dictionary claims this is simply another urban myth, hyped by the media. But whether or not “pharming” parties actually occur on a wide scale, reputable sources such as Psychology Today and The American Journal of Nursing warn that teenagers — especially those in college — are indeed bringing their parents’ drugs to parties and sharing them with friends. It really doesn’t matter if they throw them in a fishbowl or not –the consequences of mixing prescription drugs are potentially deadly, and mixing them with alcohol is even worse.

What Can be Done?

SAMHSA recommends a variety of ways to keep teens safe from prescription drug misuse. These include better education for parents and teens about the dangers of misusing prescription drugs, safer care of the drugs at home when it comes to storing them and disposing of them, and better monitoring of drug use by health care professionals.

Whatever the situation may be, parents and teens need to be aware of the dangers prescription drugs pose to young people. The cost of using them far outweighs any falsely perceived benefits.

This product was supported by SAMHSA grant funding.