Teens and Pills.

Name: Aldana Vercellone.

Article: Teens seek "safer" high, get hooked on pain pills.

Source: msnbc.com

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12803776/

A recent survey showed that even though there's a drop in alcohol use and smoking in teenagers, the use and subsequent abuse of pain pills is putting boys and girls into a higher risk.

It is considered that about 1 in 5 teens have tried "getting high" with prescription drug painkillers, such as Vicodin, which, to make things worse, it is easily found in any ordinary person's medicine cabinet.

Regarding teens' opinions, they allegue that experimenting with prescription drugs is "much safer" than illegal ones. Besides, there are no "dealers" involved, making it easier for them to get drugs almost everywhere and with a cheaper cost.

As the source of drugs is now the family medicine cabinet, the emphasis is put on parents, who should be educated so as to note any kind of strange behaviour in their children, mainly because, when they were teens, prescription drug abuse did not exist.

Apart from that, teenagers should be educated as well due to the fact that there are too many myths regarding prescribed drugs, making them believe they are dealing with safer stuff, but the after effects could be damaging their bodies too.

In our society, the abuse of painkillers has not been "discovered" by teenagers yet , but there is an increase in the ingest of anti-depressants, which, together with teens lack of information, is causing several deaths at an early age.

The most popular case occured some months ago in Buenos Aires, when a fifteen-year-old girl took four Rivotril pills plus an Ecstasy pill. The determinant factor for her death was, in my opinion, her lack of information regarding drug use, because, instead of drinking water (which is a premise when taking ecstasy or anti-deppresants) the girl drank alcohol, which made her body collapse causing her death.

In my opinion, Education is the key to fight against addictions, and as a society, all of us have to take charge in changing deadly habits.