Abuse of OxyContin and Other Prescription Opioids on Rise Among U.S. Youth

By Hugh C. McBride

Forty years after the Woodstock Music & Art Fair gave the world one of its most celebrated (and, to some, infamous) glimpses into the "sex, drugs, and rock and roll” lifestyle of U.S. youth, the state of drug abuse in America could perhaps best be encapsulated by the saying, "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

From the "staying the same" category:

• Many parents continue to worry about (and misunderstand) the degree to which U.S. youth are experimenting with mind-altering substances.
• Marijuana remains quite popular among U.S. youth.

Among the changes:

• Many of today's worried parents were once mud-soaked, drug-fueled Woodstock attendees themselves, or once wished they were.
• Though marijuana's appeal has extended across the generations, the type of drug abuse that is causing the most concern among experts today is the recreational use of prescription pills and over-the-counter medications.

In an Aug. 12 article on the CNN website, addiction expert Marvin Seppala, M.D., addressed the degree to which prescription drug abuse permeates U.S. culture:

Prescribed opioids -- pain medication -- have become the fastest-growing addiction problem in the United States. They are second to marijuana as the most commonly used illicit substances.

Vicodin and OxyContin lead the way among our youth; the 2008 "Monitoring the Future Study" by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that 9.7 percent of high school seniors have misused Vicodin and 4.7 percent OxyContin.

Opioid prescriptions have skyrocketed since the mid '90s and with this we have seen dramatic increases in illicit diversion of the drugs, addiction treatment admissions, emergency room visits for opioid overdoses and deaths.

A Widespread Problem

The abuse of OxyContin and other prescription opioids is not limited to the nation's young people. Young adults, middle-aged men and women, and senior citizens have all fallen prey to the devastating effects of prescription drug abuse and addiction. But as was the case during the 1960s and '70s, drugs that gain a foothold among younger generations have the potential to wreak devastation for decades.

And when it comes to young people and the abuse of prescription medications, the outlook is not bright.

A study that was led by Sean Esteban McCabe, PhD, from the University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center, about 12.3 percent of high school seniors in the United States admit to having misused or abused prescription pills at least once in their lives, with eight percent acknowledging that they had done so within the previous 12 months.

According to McCabe's research, which was published in the August issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, the high school seniors who admitted to the illicit use of prescription medications gave the following reasons:

1. To relax or relieve tension -- 56.4 percent
2. To feel good or get high -- 53.5 percent
3. To experiment to see what it's like -- 52.4 percent
4. To relieve physical pain -- 44.8 percent
5. To have a good time with friends -- 29.5 percent

These results were based on an analysis of four years' worth of data that had been collected on 12,441 high school seniors as part of the Monitoring the Future study.

The Dangers of Opioid Abuse

Among the dangers posed by popular street drugs such as heroin, cocaine and marijuana are the risks of impurities and unforeseen side effects due to the less-than-savory means by which these drugs are manufactured and distributed.

Ironically, while warnings about these dangers may have resulted in reduced rates of abuse for these drugs, they may have also led some people to mistakenly believe that, because they are created in laboratories by legitimate scientists and used for valid medical purposes, prescription pharmaceuticals are somehow safe to abuse.

This is clearly not the case.

Hydrocodone and oxycodone (generic term for OxyContin) can create feelings of euphoria similar to the effects experienced by individuals who abuse heroin or morphine. Abusers of these drugs will develop tolerance -- needing increasingly greater amounts of the drugs to feel the same effects -- and can quickly become dependent upon them.

Overdose is also a risk, especially among users who grind the pills into powder form in an attempt to subvert the capsules' time-release mechanisms.

Also, because OxyContin and Vicodin (another commonly abused prescription painkiller) also contain acetaminophen, excessive use can result in acute allergic reactions, liver damage, liver failure and death.