Drug Rehab Q & A: Why Aren’t More Parents Worried About Kids on Prescription Drugs?

A recent survey revealed that only 6 percent of parents are concerned about the possibility of their kids abusing prescription drugs. Obviously, they haven't seen the statistics. But what's most troubling about this information is that if parents aren't worried about it, they're probably not noticing the warning signs - as is evidenced by the fact that kids have often been abusing drugs for a few years before their parents even find out about it. Consequently, parents miss the opportunity to get their kids away from drugs before they become addicted or otherwise harmed and the kids wind up in drug rehab, in the ER, or the morgue.


Witness one of the latest trends - pharm parties: Kids gather for parties, bring whatever prescription drugs they can get their hands on - OxyContin, Vicodin, Ritalin, Adderall, to name just a few. They then throw them into a big bowl and everyone takes whatever's handy.


Search the Internet and you might run into one of the sites where teens discuss pharm parties and share drug combinations that give you the greatest high. These combos even have a name - trail mix. And you'll run into more lingo: scouring the bathroom medicine cabinets for your parents' drugs is "pharming."


The Partnership for a Drug-Free America conducted a survey in 2005 and found that 19 percent of teenagers in the U.S. said they had taken prescription drugs to get high. If only 6 percent of parents are concerned, what's going to happen to the other 13 percent? Eventually, they'll be in drug rehab. If they're lucky.


Don't think it's not going to happen to your kid. Even if they don't go to pharm parties, even if their parents don't take any prescription drugs, there's plenty of opportunity for exposure. What about the millions of kids taking antipsychotics, stimulants and sedatives that were prescribed by their own doctors? Some of those kids share the drugs with their friends and classmates.


If you talk with parents whose kids got in trouble with drugs - kids who became addicts when they moved out of the house to go to college, kids who now have their own kids being raised by grandparents, kids who have died - you'd be hard-pressed to find a parent who thought that's where their kid was headed.


Take off the rose-colored glasses. Educate yourself on the drug scene, then educate your kids, then watch for warning signs. Kids in their teens and early twenties should be in college, not with an interventionist who's trying to get them into a successful drug rehab program.


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