Prescription Drug Abuse Research Paper
More and more teens are turning to the family’s harmless medicine cabinet to harm themselves. Dr. David Smith says, “Kids today are using themselves as experimental laboratories for strange drug combinations that no scientist ever thought of,” (Winters 62). Overall, today’s rate of drug abuse in teenagers has dropped, but the nonmedical use of prescription medication has drastically increased (Chapter 4). Kids around the world are turning away from street drugs, to abuse prescription medication that can be found right at home. Prescription drug abuse is using prescription medication prescribed by a doctor, for nonmedical reasons. Buying Coricidin for an average cold can lead to drug abuse as well as being prescribed Vicodin by a physician
for migraine headaches. Many teens do not realize that taking an extra pill to make everything feel better can eventually lead to more harmful habits because the medicine is prescribed by a doctor, and not bought from the local drug dealer. That one extra pill can lead to a series of cause and effects. After day one of an extra pill and everything feels better and it got that way faster, then day 2 will have the same result, as well as, day 3 and so forth. Over 1 million people are completely dependent on one or more substances (Berger 14). Many people, youth and adult, do not know that there actually is a difference between being addicted to prescription drugs and being dependent on them. Addiction is the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is physically habit-forming to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma (addiction 1). Being addicted to a drug results in having withdrawls when the prescription is not obtainable. Once an addiction starts, it’s physically painful to stop that addiction. Although it’s not impossible to kick an addiction, in teens it is harder. Addiction is mostly a physical challenge while dependency is more psychological. When a teen is dependent on a certain drug, they rely on that drug to be there, all the time. Taking more than the dosing instructions call for lead to less pills before refill time. The craving is there when one is addicted to their prescription, but once dependency sets in, it has to be there.
for migraine headaches. Many teens do not realize that taking an extra pill to make everything feel better can eventually lead to more harmful habits because the medicine is prescribed by a doctor, and not bought from the local drug dealer. That one extra pill can lead to a series of cause and effects. After day one of an extra pill and everything feels better and it got that way faster, then day 2 will have the same result, as well as, day 3 and so forth. Over 1 million people are completely dependent on one or more substances (Berger 14). Many people, youth and adult, do not know that there actually is a difference between being addicted to prescription drugs and being dependent on them. Addiction is the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is physically habit-forming to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma (addiction 1). Being addicted to a drug results in having withdrawls when the prescription is not obtainable. Once an addiction starts, it’s physically painful to stop that addiction. Although it’s not impossible to kick an addiction, in teens it is harder. Addiction is mostly a physical challenge while dependency is more psychological. When a teen is dependent on a certain drug, they rely on that drug to be there, all the time. Taking more than the dosing instructions call for lead to less pills before refill time. The craving is there when one is addicted to their prescription, but once dependency sets in, it has to be there.