Teens find a New Way of Getting High

The number of teens indulging in illegal drugs and alcohol has reduced sharply in the present year, but the use of legal drugs like pain killers, mood stimulants, and even cough syrups has accelerated.

In a government funded study conducted by University of Michigan, the researchers found that the teenagers are indulging in the usage of prescription painkillers like OxyContin and Vicodin and stimulants like Ritalin, in order to be high. The survey also concluded saying that the abuse of such drugs is widespread.

It was found that one out of every 14 high school students have “recently started” popping “cold medicines” in order to “get high”.

It is the first year that the government tracked teenagers who used legal medicines in order to get high and revealed that the problem is grave.

"It's bad that kids are buying cough syrup and using it this way - it's not good for them," said John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Walters said that prescribed drugs are not difficult to obtain, and teenagers may even be stealing them from their parent’s medicine cabinets.

"That is one thing you can do - take the pills that are no longer being used and throw them away, get rid of them," he said in an interview.

The public service advertising was lauded by Walter after seeing an overall decrease in legal drug abuse over the past five years. He said that the agency will now shift its focus towards battling prescription drug abuse.

The Government had raised its voice in August and had suggested Congress to reduce funding of anti-drug campaigns, holding that the Government Accountability Office found some children were actually more likely to use marijuana after seeing the ads. Walters snubbed off these allegations and said that the campaigns have proved to be a success.

The increase in prescription drug abuse comes as bad as well as good news. The mount in the usage of prescription drug abuse was a disturbing conclusion in the study, however, Walters has painted an overall positive picture because of the drop in teen use of alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana and other illicit substances.

The annual study, in its 32nd year, surveyed 50,000 students in the 8th, 10th and 12th grades at more than 400 schools nationwide, and found that the legal drug abuse has reduced.

The researchers revealed that 21% of 8th-graders, 36% of 10th-graders and 48% of 12th-graders agreed upon the usage of illegal drugs at least once in their lifetime. However, these figures have declined to 0.5%, 2.1% and 2.2% from the previous year, respectively.

About 6% of eighth-graders, 19% of 10th-graders and 30% of 12th-graders said they had been drunk at least once in the past 30 days. The present report shows that underage drinking has also slumped significantly.

The officials however reported that alcohol abuse declined in the younger grades but continue to scale up in the higher grades.

The use of green goddess has topped the charts for the fifth year in a row and continues to be the most popular illegal drug. The reports revealed that there has been a decline in the usage of pot by the 10th and the 12th graders, but the 8th graders continue to experiment with pot and there has been no significant decline in this category.

The use of meth has declined in the 10th graders but not in 12th and the 8th graders. The abuse of crack mounted up in the late 1990’s, but it has declined down by 50%.

The negative publicity associated with steroid use by professional baseball players, the usage of anabolic steroids has also decreased.

Anti-drug officials and academicians said that the study is a window to get a peep into the increasing and decreasing drug trends among the teenagers, and will prove beneficial in critical decision-making stages of development.