Seminar informing parents on adolescent drug abuse
Published on October 18th, 2006
STONEHAM, MA - Almost every kid jumps at the sight of candy.
But does this centuries old love of sweets correlate to over-the-counter and prescription drug abuse amongst youngsters and adolescents?
One expert argued just that last Wednesday at the high school auditorium during a parent education forum on drug-use.
According to Marilyn Belmonte, a regionally renowned expert on regional drug-abuse trends and a regular participant in police, paramedic, and teacher seminars on the topic, drug manufacturers have saturated the market with over-the-counter medications that taste and even share the appearance of candy.
Belmonte, who is facilitating a multi-layered Citizen's Drug Recognition Academy for parents at the Stoneham High School, referred last Wednesday to a table-load of such sweet, fruity-flavored, non-prescription drugs during the seminar, singling out some common cold and allergy syrups and tablets that were actually shaped and packaged in common candy favorites like gummy-bears and pixie sticks.
And while the Co-Chair of the Burlington Drug and Alcohol Task Force admitted that these good tasting remedies have made it easier for fussy children to "take their medicine", she insisted that the manufacturers had created an unintended consequence: An increased likelihood that kids would misuse the over-the-counter drugs.
The problem, Belmonte argued, is that children and adolescents see no danger in the substances, not only because they taste so good, but also largely because of a fundamental misunderstanding about dosage, or the amount of non-prescription medication that is safe to consume at one time.
"Medicine looks and tastes so much like candy that kids are treating it like candy," the lecturer said. "Do you think my mom ever had to say, 'now, I don't want you taking that Castor Oil by itself, it's not candy you know?'"
"[Kids] don't understand about dosage. They think they can take three, four, five pills and that it's safe. We need to take the time to make sure our kids understand what safe means. Sure, you can buy it at CVS, but that doesn't mean you can take the whole box."
According to Belmonte, while it may seem somewhat ridiculous to assume that adolescents abuse over-the-counter drugs for a high, she referred to many indications that such a practice was becoming more and more commonplace. (The Stoneham Independent, at the reasonable and understanding request of the lecturer, agreed not to print which specific remedies were popular to abuse, nor the manner in which they could be, so as not to encourage such use by providing a how-to manual).
By fundamentally misunderstanding just how dangerous over-the-counter drugs can be in large quantities, many adolescents share a similar view of prescription medications as "safe", the Wheaton College graduate furthered.
In fact, such attitudes have become so prevalent, according to recent studies, that nearly 40 percent of adolescents view such drugs as safe, an estimated 30 percent of teens believe such substances are non-addicting, and one-in-five teens abuse prescription medications.
"To put that into perspective, that means more teens are abusing prescription drugs than the combined use of cocaine, heroin, PCP, ecstasy...we can go on and on and on," Belmonte explained.
"They'll tell you, 'I'm not stupid. I'm not using cocaine, I'm using prescription drugs. If it's safe enough for a doctor to prescribe to grandma, then [it's safe enough for me].'"
While such teens might start taking prescription medication, the costs of maintaining such a habit, especially once a tolerance for the drug is built-up, becomes far too high to maintain.
And so the new drug-addicted adolescents are forced to turn to the taboo "hard-drug" substances they had perhaps shunned in the past. According to Belmonte, for those abusing pain-killers, especially Oxycontin, that new drug of choice too often becomes heroin.
"For a dollar a milligram, we're talking about $80 a pill. And kids have that money," the drug expert said. "But what happens when you need a pill every day, or every three to five hours? Who can afford that? And that's when they go to heroin, because it's so dirt cheap. That's the connection."
According to Belmonte, parents can take steps to ensure that such a problem never occurs with their child. First and foremost, she argued, parents need to stop hoarding or storing prescription drugs that they no longer need, as teens often discover the forgotten substances and end-up either abusing them or selling them in school.
Parents can also start familiarizing themselves with what she termed the physical "cues" of drug-abuse. The most common indicator, one that all people will display, surrounds the appearance of the eye.
For example, for narcotic medications [common pain-killers], the pupils will become pin-pointed, fixed and non-responsive to light, and be covered by drooped eyelids. For those "coming down" from narcotic-based prescription drugs as the medication wears off, the pupils will expand and contract wildly.
Other indicators of narcotic-based drugs include constant scratching of the face and arms, a sedated or sleepy appearance, cool and clammy skin, and a "dreamy" or almost drunk-like manner of walking and talking.
The opposite will occur for stimulant-based drugs, such as those commonly prescribed for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) in that the pupils will dilate, sweating instead of having clammy skin will occur, and hyperactivity or tremoring/shaking rather than appearing sluggish.
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