Teens drinking less alcohol but using more prescription pills

~ Area school officials say students find it easy to grab pills from family medicine cabinets.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse says teens in junior high and high school are smoking fewer cigarettes and consuming less alcohol. Illicit drug use also is down, according to the study released last month.

But a disturbing trend has emerged. More of America's teenagers are popping prescription painkillers to get high.

While alcohol and marijuana are still used more than prescription pills, the University of Michigan study found the use of the painkiller OxyContin alone jumped 26 percent since 2002 for students in grades eight, 10 and 12 combined.

That doesn't surprise Cape Girardeau Central High School student Kimberly Williams, a 16-year-old sophomore.

"I have friends who take OxyContin to get high," she said. "They see it more as a party drug."

She said the drugs are readily available from parents' medicine cabinets. Williams said some students sell the drug for $5 to $10 a tablet.

Friends, she said, don't view abuse of prescription medicine as a drug crime. "All my friends think it's legal," she said.

Officials at area schools say they've seen students increasingly abuse prescription drugs.

Dr. Mike Cowan, Central High School principal, has seen the growing abuse of prescription drugs by high school students.

"We used to talk about kids raiding mom's and dad's liquor cabinet. Today's bigger concern is raiding mom's and dad's medicine cabinet," he said.

Prescription drugs are readily available, Cowan said. "Our society is more heavily medicated than it has ever been before.

"You would be amazed at the amount of medication dispensed by school nurses every day," he said.

With so many prescriptions, it's not surprising that some students abuse drugs.

"In the past five years, our most dangerous incidents of drug abuse at school have been abuse of prescription drugs," Cowan said.

Dr. Ron Anderson, superintendent of the Jackson schools, says such drug abuse has increased among junior high and high school students in his district.

Like officials in other school districts, Anderson says students find it easy to grab prescription pills from family medicine cabinets.

They're also easier to hide, he said. "A drug dog doesn't pick up on them."

Anderson believes schools must start educating students at an early age about prescription-drug abuse and also inform parents about the problem.

Central High School students say they've been told about the health dangers of smoking cigarettes since they were in elementary school. They've also been warned about illegal drugs. Less has been said in school about abuse of prescription drugs, students say.

But Central High School health teacher Robyn Gross said she warns her students about the dangers of abusing prescription drugs. "We talk about the dangers of addiction," she said.

That hasn't deterred some pill-popping students.

"We have had some suspensions because of that," she said.

The study surveyed 49,347 students in grades eight, 10 and 12 attending private and public schools nationwide. Among high school seniors, 9.5 percent reported using painkiller Vicodin and 5.5 percent reported using OxyContin in the past year. That's up slightly from 2004.

Federal health officials are worried about the rising abuse of prescription medicine among teenagers. Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the drug institute, said prescription medicines should only be taken under a doctor's supervision.

"Using these drugs without a prescription is dangerous. It's imperative that teens get this message," Volkow said.

Cape Girardeau police officer Adam Glueck deals with student drug abuse as a school resource officer at Central High School. Authorities periodically bring in a police dog to sniff out marijuana or other illegal drugs in student lockers.

Police dogs aren't trained to detect prescription drugs, he said, and some students may feel they can abuse them without getting caught.

Schools have rules against such drug abuse and police have arrested students in the past for selling prescription controlled substances.

But a new Missouri law which took effect in August makes it a crime for pupils to distribute any prescription drugs to others or to possess them on school property without a valid prescription. Violators face a misdemeanor charge, which escalates with repeat offenses. A first offense carries a maximum punishment of six months in jail and/or a fine of up to $500.

Few cases of prescription-drug abuse have surfaced at the Cape Girardeau Junior High School, said school resource officer Alvin Spencer.

Police Sgt. Barry Hovis previously worked as a resource officer at Cape Girardeau Central High School. Hovis said he made seven or eight prescription-drug arrests at the high school several years ago.

Arrests have occurred in other school districts too.

In March 2004, a 17-year-old Jackson High School student was charged with a Class B felony of delivery of a controlled substance after she sold two Adderall pills for a dollar each to a 15-year-old girl. The transaction occurred near the school.

Adderall is a suppressant in young people but acts as a stimulant in adults, Jackson police said. The medication is used to treat attention deficit disorder in children.

Still, underage drinking remains the biggest problem, Hovis said. "Alcohol is your No. 1 abused drug among people less than 21."

Nearly half of high-school seniors -- 47 percent -- reported drinking alcoholic beverages at least once in a 30-day period, according to the survey. Thirty-three percent of 10th-graders and 17 percent of eighth-graders consumed alcoholic beverages during the same one-month period.

But those numbers still are an improvement. Drinking among eighth-graders has dropped 35 percent since 1996, federal health officials say. Among 10th-graders, alcohol consumption is down 19 percent since 2000. Consumption of alcoholic beverages dropped by 11 percent for high-school seniors since 1997, federal health officials said.

Twelve percent of eighth-graders, 26 percent of 10th-graders and 33 percent of seniors reported they smoked marijuana.

Central High School student Anthony Watts, 16, said marijuana smoking is common among students. "I know a lot of people who do it," he said. Watts said he steers clear of drug abuse by surrounding himself with drug-free friends.

Fellow sophomore Andria Jones, 16, said she hasn't witnessed students popping pills or otherwise abusing drugs. She said she and her friends stay away from that culture. "We don't do drugs," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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