Lauren Mitchusson (FGCU) Prescription Drug Abuse

Most people take medicines only for the reasons their doctors prescribe them. An estimated 20 percent of people in the United States have used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons. This is considered prescription drug abuse. It is a serious and growing problem.

Abusing some prescription drugs can lead to addiction. You can develop an addiction to: narcotic painkillers, sedatives, tranquilizers, and stimulants.

Experts don’t know exactly why this type of drug abuse is increasing. The availability of drugs is probably one reason. Doctors are prescribing more drugs for more health problems than ever before. Online pharmacies make it easy to get prescription drugs without a prescription, even for youngsters.  Prescription drug abuse rarely happens in people who need commonly abused painkillers, sedatives or stimulants to treat a medical condition. It can be extremely difficult for a doctor to distinguish between a person who needs a larger dose to control his or her pain and a person who’s abusing prescription painkillers.  Most commonly, the following behaviors are warning signs of prescription drug abuse: Continually “losing” prescriptions, so more prescriptions must be written, seeking prescriptions from more than one doctor, taking higher doses despite warnings, stealing, forging or selling prescriptions, and excessive mood swings. 

  Most prescriptions are written for people who have a true medical need. But many households have a drawer filled with old prescription bottles containing leftover drugs. Because prescription drugs have medical uses, teens often believe they are a safe alternative to street drugs, they are sadly mistaken.  In some cases, a doctor’s prescription isn’t even needed. Some countries don’t require prescriptions for opioid painkillers or other commonly abused drugs, so they can be purchased from various Web sites without a doctor written prescription.

Ending the abuse of prescription drugs isn’t easy, if it were users wouldn’t become addicted.  A doctor may suggest that you be admitted to a residential facility that can provide specialized treatment for your specific problem.  Medications can be prescribed to ease withdrawl symptoms from opioid painkillers, such as Buprenorphine and methadone.  Drugs like these have very strict guidelines.  Other drugs such as clonidine, used for high blood pressure, can also be used to help manage opioid

In general, attenuating sedatives can be medically complicated and should be done only after a consultation with a doctor comfortable with assessing and managing these issues. If you’ve used prescription sedatives for a long time, it may take weeks or even months slowly stop taking them. Mood-stabilizing drugs at critical points in the withdrawal process may help. There are no approved drugs used for the withdrawal of stimulants. Treatment usually focuses on relieving withdrawal symptoms — such as sleep, appetite and mood disturbances.

Counseling is also used. Either the individual, group or family counseling is useful.  Aside determining what factors may have led to the prescription drug abuse, counseling can also help people learn the skills needed to help prevent its recurrence.

Prescription drug abuse is a widely growing problem mostly due to how easy it has become to obtain them.  Doctors need to begin to take extra precautionary measures before dolling out the highly potent drugs.  

This entry was posted on 6. April 2009 at 18:23 and is filed under Introduction to Sociology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.