A Prescription for Addiction: The Changing Face of Drug Abuse

by Lisa Hall Wilson

Teens steal from the family medicine cabinet and skim pills from bottles. They gather with a dozen friends, dump the collected pills in a bowl and take a handful. They call it “pharming.” They sell their personal prescriptions (for drugs like Ritalin®) to classmates. They chug cough syrup and steal cold medications from pharmacies. Using prescription drugs is safe, the kids say, because they’re not made in dirty clandestine labs. They know what they’re getting.

Would you know a drug addict if you met one? How about a drug dealer? The nature of addiction is changing, and so must our understanding of substance abuse.

“Would you know a drug addict if you met one? How about a drug dealer? The nature of addiction is changing, and so must our understanding of substance abuse.”

David grew up in the church, the middle child of nine. Self-employed, David broke three fingers in a work-related accident at age 24. A doctor prescribed OxyContin®, a narcotic, for the pain and he became addicted. When the doctor cut him off, he turned to the streets. “I spent all the money I had on this drug. The construction business that my brother and I had fell apart when we could no longer afford fuel for the work vehicle.” An accidental addict, he eventually got clean with the help of Teen Challenge.

According to a November 2009 study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), 20 per cent of Ontario students in Grades 7 through 12 have used prescription drugs non-medically—meaning kids are taking drugs not prescribed for them in order to get high. Prescription drugs are now third in popularity behind alcohol and marijuana.

Jeff was raised on a farm. Devastated by the death of his grandmother, he started using OxyContin off the street as a way to escape the emotional pain. He was eighteen. His grandfather, Ernie, says, “Nobody believed me that he had a problem—not his parents, not his siblings. But I knew.” Ernie got Jeff into Teen Challenge.

Across the country, small towns are hit hardest by prescription drug abuse. Woodstock, Ontario, a small town of 35,000, has its own methadone clinic. A study from BC found that the number of prescriptions filled for these addictive narcotics are considerably higher in the interior than in the cities.

Steve, a grandfather and former addict, underwent surgery after graduating from the Teen Challenge residential rehab program. His family physician was aware of his past addictions, but Steve says the surgeon never asked. Put on morphine directly after the surgery, he was given a prescription for Percocet®, a narcotic.

The pain lasted longer than the prescription, and a friend on the street gave him an OxyContin pill. Steve remembers thinking, “This is really nice. It felt really good.” He started self-medicating using pills he obtained off the street. Percocet contains acetaminophen and the opioid oxycodone, and releases the entire narcotic at once, with the effects lasting about five hours.

OxyContin is pure oxycodone and has a 12-hour time-release feature. One OxyContin pill is equal to about 16 Percocet pills. Users crush the tablets to bypass the time-release feature, thereby releasing the entire drug at once. Steve’s mother intervened and got him back into Teen Challenge for a refresher. Now he uses Advil .

The problem of prescription drug abuse goes beyond street kids choosing Oxy over heroin or ecstasy because it’s safer. There are many facets to this growing issue. First: kids are abusing other over-the-counter medications such as cough syrups containing dextromethorphan (DXM) and antihistamines with ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. Prescription pain relievers such as Tylenol 3®, OxyContin and Dilaudid®; anti-anxiety drugs such as Xanax® and Valium®; and stimulants used to treat ADHD such as Dexedrine® and Ritalin are all readily available, easily abused and addictive. What’s worse is that most of these drugs are mixed and consumed with alcohol—often a deadly combination.

Second: prescription drugs are one of the few stolen items that increase in value, tempting everyone from Grandma to a ten-year-old on Ritalin to sell their prescriptions. Take Dilaudid, for example. A bottle of 20 pills is worth less than $10 at the pharmacy, but on the street that value jumps to almost $600. OxyContin is $20 to $30 per pill, making it fairly cheap by street standards, but if health care or insurance has paid for the prescription, the profit margin gets even better.

“Prescription drugs are one of the few stolen items that increase in value, tempting everyone from Grandma to a ten-year-old on Ritalin to sell their prescriptions.”

The stealing of prescription pads and drug thefts at nursing homes and pharmacies are growing concerns. Pharmacies are being targeted for the narcotics and other medications they stock. Some pharmacists have employed heavy security measures for the safety of staff.

Third: North Americans demand that a doctor “fix” them with a pill. This has created a continuing demand for new medications and made their use socially acceptable. Now kids can just pop a pill rather than risk being looked down on for shooting up with a needle. Society has made it very easy for them. The Globe and Mail reported that 466,000 doses of prescription opioids are given in Canada—every day. Canada is ranked third worldwide, behind Belgium and the United States, for prescription opioid use per capita. There have been instances where 2,000 pills have been prescribed at one time.

Parents are no different. For everything from a major infection to preventing sickness, we offer our children a pill. Whether it’s a Tylenol or a vitamin, the message is the same. “This will make you feel better,” we tell them. And we’re not wrong. But what underlying message are they receiving?

George Glover, national director for Teen Challenge in Canada, advises everyone, especially parents, to “Keep track of how much is left in the bottle, and safely dispose of leftover medications. Talk with your kids about the importance of only using drugs as directed. Prescription opioids, anti-anxiety drugs and others serve a purpose and help a lot of people, but they are addictive. If you’re taking these drugs by prescription, fully disclose any past addiction issues and keep yourself accountable to someone else. I have seen these drugs, meant for good, destroy lives and devastate families. If you are trapped in this addiction, get help. Now.”

Lisa Hall Wilson is a freelance writer who lives with her husband and three children in London, ON. For more information about drugs and drug addiction, visit www.teenchallenge.ca.

This article appeared in the March 2010 edition of testimony, a monthly publication of The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. © The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, 2010.

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