Teens abusing ADHD medication, study finds
Poison control centers have seen a sharp increase in the number of calls about teen misuse of attention-deficit drugs, suggesting "a rising problem with abuse of these medications," according to a new study out today.
The calls came from emergency room doctors, parents and school officials asking for advice for how to deal with apparent abuse of the increasingly common medications. The severity of the calls has increased over time and four deaths were reported in the study.
Teens, who many times use the drugs to get high, may not realize that there can be serious consequences to using what are, after all, prescription medications. Sales data of attention-deficit drugs suggest that abuse of the medications reflects an increased availability of the prescriptions, which have also been rising. The calls about ADHD medication rose 76 percent over an eight-year period, a pace outstripping calls for victims of substance abuse generally and teen substance abuse.
The study, in the journal Pediatrics, was done by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center researchers using data from 1998 to 2005.
The study lacks information on whether abusers were teens with ADHD, but anecdotal evidence suggests many are not.
Comments
Teens are now experimenting more on prescription drugs, over the counter drugs and any other substance that gives them high. Due to changing high school variables in couple of years, we now observe more teens towards Rx abuse. This blog specially written on "High School and it's Variables", here on http://parentingteens.com/blog/high-sfchool-and-its-variables/ , rightly said that this is the daunting scenario that we have today. We are aware of it, the government is aware of it, law enforcers are aware of it but still the nagging problem persists and threatens the fragile future of our youth today. Numbers don’t lie. Nearly half of all high school seniors in America have experimented with illegal drugs and about three quarters have tried alcohol. The problem should be addressed now with more stringent measures and from different fronts. It should be a collective and conscious effort from the government, school administrations and more importantly the parents.
Posted by: Jennifer | September 29, 2009 3:26 PM