In a recent interview Stephen Pasierb, President and CEO of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, referred to prescription drugs as the new gateway drugs. Kids and young adults who wouldn’t consider taking heroin or cocaine are taking prescription drugs like they’re going out of style. While it’s true these drugs may motivate people to take illegal drugs, prescription drug addiction and abuse is dangerous enough in itself.
The statistics on prescription drug addiction and abuse are astounding. These teenagers, and young adults, say they wouldn’t dream of taking drugs, but one in five teenagers admit to having abused prescription drugs, these drugs are tried for the first time more than illegal drugs, as many if not more people are going into Oxycodone Detox drug addiction treatment centers for prescription drug addiction and abuse, and the overdoses outnumber those caused by illegal drugs.
Until people realize that prescription drugs and illegal drugs are equally dangerous – in some cases these drugs are even worse, this isn’t likely to stop.
Ritalin, for example, taken by college students all over the U.S. to ‘improve their focus,’ is very similar to cocaine. You don’t get the same immediate effect – the ‘rush’ – because it’s delivered into the body differently. But once it’s in there, it does the same thing.
Similarly, the prescription painkiller OxyContin, which is probably the most frequently abused drug, is pharmaceutical heroin. It’s just as addictive, and just as dangerous. But, again, it’s not going directly into the vein so it doesn’t feel like heroin.
Also, the kids taking these drugs are in a dark alley or living in some hovel with mattresses on the floor, they’re our kids! They’re in college studying, they’re going to parties with their friends, they’re athletes working hard to achieve something. Prescription drug addiction and abuse has really changed the face of the drug addict or abuser.
And, as Mr. Pasierb points out, the drugs are made in a sterile environment, you know what’s in them, they’re approved by the FDA, and given to people by their doctors. Surely there can’t be anything wrong with them.
Well, there is something very wrong with them. And there is something very wrong with a system – perhaps several systems – that have allowed the field of medicine to betray the people it serves.
Prescription drug addiction and abuse is something you need to know about. It’s worse than global warming, it’s worse than the war in Iraq, it’s worse than all the other problems we have. These drugs are wolves in sheep’s clothing.