American kids getting high on prescription drugs
 

American kids getting high on prescription drugs



BOSTON (Reuters) - When Paul Michaud's father died of cancer, the
16-year-old took OxyContin to ease his emotional pain.

He first snorted the prescription painkiller and within weeks he was
injecting it into his veins for a more powerful high before turning to
heroin as a cheaper option.

"It was the one drug that really pulled me. It took away everything,"
said Michaud, now 18, one of a new generation of American children
getting high on and addicted to prescription drugs.

Teenagers are increasingly experimenting with legal drugs like
OxyContin, widely known as "hillbilly heroin," and Vicodin, often
bought online or taken from medicine cabinets, even before trying
marijuana or alcohol, health officials say.


"Last year, painkillers were the No. 1 drug for people taking drugs
for the first time," said Nora Volkow, director of the National
Institute on Drug Abuse, an arm of the government's National
Institutes of Health.


"It's been escalating and escalating," she said. "In the past, the No.
1 drug for new initiates was marijuana."


Michaud, who attended a Boston area high school, was caught stealing
to pay for what he described as his almost instant addiction to
OxyContin -- which can cost $80 to $100 for a 40 mg pill. He was then
checked into a drug and alcohol clinic.


He has since been in and out of rehab programs six times.


"It destroyed my life pretty much. I haven't seen any of my teenage
years," he said from the Phoenix House, a clinic in the western
Massachusetts city of Springfield, where he says he has been clean for
50 days.


Michaud is not alone. Last year's Monitoring the Future study,
produced jointly by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the
University of Michigan, found a 38-percent rise in abuse of OxyContin
among 18-year-olds between 2002 and 2005.


While overall drug use dropped 19 percent over the past four years,
about one in 10 teenagers were abusing prescription drugs, the survey
showed.


"PHARMING PARTIES"


Among the most dangerous experiments are "pharming parties" where
children meet after scouring family medicine cabinets and dumping what
they find into a bowl. They stir things up, dip in, randomly pluck
drugs out and swallow them.


"They literally do not know what they are taking," said Michael Rich,
director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's
Hospital in Boston.


"They can overdose or take medications that counteract with each other
or interact with each other in dangerous ways. When you combine the
anti-anxiety drug Klonopin for example with alcohol, they work in the
same way and can very much lower the threshold at which you stop
breathing," he said.


Volkow at the National Institute on Drug Abuse said many teens
associate prescription drugs with family doctors, and consider them
safe, or have had positive experiences with properly prescribed
medication in their early childhood.


The challenge, she said, is to control abuse without banning drugs
that do more good than harm to society. OxyContin, which is sold
generically and generates about $2 billion in annual sales, is widely
used in hospitals.


The issue grabbed public attention in Boston after the suicide in
January of 17-year-old Cameron O'Connor, who shot himself in the head
a day after taking Klonopin. His death in Boston's middle-class
Arlington suburb triggered calls for better ways to detect teen abuse
of prescription drugs.


Teenagers are not the only prescription drug abusers. The number of
people over the age of 55 treated for abuse of opiates, for example,
has nearly doubled between 1995 and 2002, government statistics show.
In 2003, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh admitted becoming
hooked on OxyContin.


"We're also seeing an increase in the use of these drugs in young
adults," said Lloyd Johnston, lead investigator at Michigan's
Institute for Social Research, which researches the government's
700-page Monitoring the Future study.
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American kids getting high on prescription drugs
 

Ilena wrote in message ...
American kids getting high on prescription drugs


So what do you propose should be done about all this, Ilena? Sure, drug
abuse is a problem. What does this have to do with mha? Why post it here?
--


--Rich

Recommended websites:

http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles
http://www.acahf.org.au
http://www.quackwatch.org/
http://www.skeptic.com/
http://www.csicop.org/

American kids getting high on prescription drugs
 

"Rich" wrote in message
...

Ilena wrote in message
...
American kids getting high on prescription drugs


So what do you propose should be done about all this, Ilena? Sure, drug
abuse is a problem. What does this have to do with mha? Why post it here?
--


--Rich


it shows the real nature of pharma med (1.5 million benzo addicts UK) and
the need to use nutrients which don't have these problems, quite aprt from
the drug pusing of the drug companies by inventing diseases such ADHD
http://www.adhdfraud.com/

American kids getting high on prescription drugs
 

"john" wrote in message
...

"Rich" wrote in message
...

Ilena wrote in message
...
American kids getting high on prescription drugs


So what do you propose should be done about all this, Ilena? Sure, drug
abuse is a problem. What does this have to do with mha? Why post it here?
--


--Rich


it shows the real nature of pharma med (1.5 million benzo addicts UK) and
the need to use nutrients which don't have these problems, quite aprt from
the drug pusing of the drug companies by inventing diseases such ADHD
http://www.adhdfraud.com/

So if you come to my emergency room with a broken leg, you want some
nutrients instead of narcotics? It's a deal. By the way, ADHD medications
are not "benzo's."
--


--Rich

Recommended websites:

http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles
http://www.acahf.org.au
http://www.quackwatch.org/
http://www.skeptic.com/
http://www.csicop.org/

American kids getting high on prescription drugs
 

"Rich" wrote in message
...


So if you come to my emergency room with a broken leg, you want some
nutrients instead of narcotics? It's a deal. By the way, ADHD medications
are not "benzo's."

Pharma is good for trauma med.

it was benzos, now the next round of addictive drugs are the ritalin lot

see how it works?

American kids getting high on prescription drugs
 

"Rich" wrote in message
...

Ilena wrote in message
...
American kids getting high on prescription drugs


So what do you propose should be done about all this, Ilena? Sure, drug
abuse is a problem. What does this have to do with mha? Why post it here?
--
By LIDIA WASOWICZ
UPI Senior Science Writer
http://www.upi.com/ConsumerHealthDai...6-091132-9736r


SAN FRANCISCO, March 17 (UPI) -- Nutritionists are convinced that, just
like everyone else, children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity
disorder are what they eat.

Specifically, the specialists have their eye on so-called omega-3 fatty
acids as playing some role in the condition that, in general, is marked
by trouble keeping still, difficulty in maintaining attention,
propensity toward acting impulsively or some combination of the three.

Omega-3 fatty acids are plentiful in cold-water fish, such as salmon,
herring, tuna, clams, crab, cod, flounder, sole, halibut, catfish, trout
and shrimp. They also abound in nuts; soybeans; walnut, olive and
flaxseed oil; seeds; whole grains and dark leafy greens.

The fatty acids comprise a hefty component of the brain, which weighs in
at about 60-percent fat.

The compounds, which studies indicate are essential for forming and
maintaining the dopamine system, have been found in short supply in
some, though not all, children diagnosed with ADHD.

Many researchers see ADHD as a hereditary imbalance of brain chemicals,
such as dopamine -- which regulates movement, emotion, motivation and
sensations of pleasure.

That view is strongly contested by critics who point to a dearth of
physical evidence for such a notion.

Whatever their connection to the "feel-good" chemical in the brain, the
omega-3 fatty acids appear to have an impact on a child's behavior,
portending problems in youngsters who don't have enough of the compounds.

As one example, a recent Duke University study of 96 boys ages 6 to 12
indicated those with low blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids face
increased risk of ADHD-like behavior, learning and health challenges.

There is also some evidence the compounds may play a benevolent role in
the production of myelin, a protective insulation that coats the brain's
internal wiring,

A novel model of human brain development and degeneration proposed by
researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles implicates
disruption of myelin production in such childhood developmental
disorders as autism and ADHD.

From a review of scanned and autopsied brain tissue, the investigators
unraveled the role of myelin in these conditions.

Laden with more cholesterol than any other brain component, the sheet of
fat surrounds the spindly nerve-cell extensions called axons, permitting
them to carry messages to their neighbors in the safety and security of
their armor.

The thicker and heavier the cells' coat, the faster and more effective
their communication, said team leader Dr. George Bartzokis, professor of
neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine and director of the
UCLA Memory Disorders and Alzheimer's Disease Clinic and the Clinical
Core of the UCLA Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

The pioneering neuroscientist discovered that myelin production
continues unabated throughout the first four decades of life before
peaking and plummeting at age 45. His latest research portrays the
protective shield as the neural system's Achilles' heel, vulnerable to a
host of environmental assaults.

"Myelination, a process uniquely elaborated in humans, arguably is the
most important and most vulnerable process of brain development as we
mature and age," Bartzokis said.

Without adequate insulation, cells won't connect properly, he has found
in a series of experiments that showed a breakdown in the sheath can
expose the naked wiring beneath and open the gates to an array of
neurological and behavioral problems.

Bartzokis's theory holds that humans "myelinate" different circuits at
various points in life, which could explain the sizeable differences
between brain diseases of the young and old.

An early disruption of the process, for instance, may throw for a loop
the development of the basic circuits that govern language and social
communication, two key impairments in autism.

A glitch during the early school years could hamper the ability to
process information efficiently and effectively, leading to deficits in
attention that characterize ADHD. Later in life, the result of a
malfunction could be Alzheimer's disease.

To Bartzokis, the human brain is akin to high-speed Internet.

"The speed, quality and bandwidth of the connections determine the
brain's ability to process information, and all these depend in large
part on the insulation that coats the brain's connecting wires," he said.

The findings may explain why developmental disorders leave no calling
card in the brain. "There's no dead anything on autopsy," Bartzokis
said. "Those brain connections just never developed normally."

Bartzokis's studies also show female brains make better myelin, which
could explain why boys are at much greater risk for autism, ADHD and
other problems.

"On the positive side, there are some interesting things to consider,"
Bartzokis said. "For example, essential fatty acids are fats that are
necessary for membrane production, and myelin is essentially pure membrane."

"They are called 'essential' because the human body cannot produce them,
and, therefore, they are like 'vitamins' -- they need to come from a
good diet," he added. "Thus, nutrition is very important because the
brain is very busy trying to build the myelin sheaths."

Still, researchers don't have the skinny on the exact relationship
between the fats and ADHD.

Although alternative medicine practitioners report some success in
ameliorating symptoms with the use of fatty acid, mineral, vitamin B and
other supplements, none of these has been embraced as standard therapy.

Conventional and complementary practices also part ways on the role, and
remedial potential, of food additives, sugar or allergens. All of these
remain controversial, having failed to withstand rigorous scientific
scrutiny, according to a compilation of ADHD data by Dr. Peter Jensen,
director of the Center for the Advancement of Children's Mental Health
at Columbia University.

Next: Seeking environmental clues to ADHD.

(Editors' Note: This series on ADHD is based on a review of hundreds of
reports and a survey of more than 200 specialists.)

--

UPI Health News welcomes comments on this column. E-mail:

© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved

American kids getting high on prescription drugs
 

"Rich" wrote in message
...

"john" wrote in message
...

"Rich" wrote in message
...

Ilena wrote in message
...
American kids getting high on prescription drugs


So what do you propose should be done about all this, Ilena? Sure, drug
abuse is a problem. What does this have to do with mha? Why post it
here?

Why not?


--


--Rich


it shows the real nature of pharma med (1.5 million benzo addicts UK) and
the need to use nutrients which don't have these problems, quite aprt
from the drug pusing of the drug companies by inventing diseases such
ADHD http://www.adhdfraud.com/

So if you come to my emergency room with a broken leg, you want some
nutrients instead of narcotics? It's a deal. By the way, ADHD medications
are not "benzo's."

I think you skipped right over the point.

In FACT ADHD medications are now going to have *black box* warnings.

This is what is given to kids as young as age two and three.


--


--Rich

American kids getting high on prescription drugs
 

"Jan Drew" wrote in message
om...

"Rich" wrote in message
...

"john" wrote in message
...

"Rich" wrote in message
...

Ilena wrote in message
...
American kids getting high on prescription drugs


So what do you propose should be done about all this, Ilena? Sure, drug
abuse is a problem. What does this have to do with mha? Why post it
here?

Why not?


--


--Rich


it shows the real nature of pharma med (1.5 million benzo addicts UK)
and the need to use nutrients which don't have these problems, quite
aprt from the drug pusing of the drug companies by inventing diseases
such ADHD http://www.adhdfraud.com/

So if you come to my emergency room with a broken leg, you want some
nutrients instead of narcotics? It's a deal. By the way, ADHD medications
are not "benzo's."

I think you skipped right over the point.

In FACT ADHD medications are now going to have *black box* warnings.

This is what is given to kids as young as age two and three.


So what's that got to do with people abusing prescription narcotics?
--


--Rich

Recommended websites:

http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles
http://www.acahf.org.au
http://www.quackwatch.org/
http://www.skeptic.com/
http://www.csicop.org/

American kids getting high on prescription drugs
 

"Rich" wrote in message
...

"Jan Drew" wrote in message
om...

"Rich" wrote in message
...

"john" wrote in message
...

"Rich" wrote in message
...

Ilena wrote in message
...
American kids getting high on prescription drugs


So what do you propose should be done about all this, Ilena? Sure,
drug abuse is a problem. What does this have to do with mha? Why post
it here?

Why not?


--


--Rich


it shows the real nature of pharma med (1.5 million benzo addicts UK)
and the need to use nutrients which don't have these problems, quite
aprt from the drug pusing of the drug companies by inventing diseases
such ADHD http://www.adhdfraud.com/

So if you come to my emergency room with a broken leg, you want some
nutrients instead of narcotics? It's a deal. By the way, ADHD
medications are not "benzo's."

I think you skipped right over the point.

In FACT ADHD medications are now going to have *black box* warnings.

This is what is given to kids as young as age two and three.


So what's that got to do with people abusing prescription narcotics?

See the title of the thread, Rich?

American kids getting high on prescription drugs

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi...&date=20060224

Excerpts:

Millions have misused ADHD stimulant drugs, study says

"Houston, we have got a problem because we are just in the middle of this
epidemic."

More than nuff said.




--


--Rich

American kids getting high on prescription drugs
 

"Jan Drew" wrote in message
. com...

"Rich" wrote in message
...

"Jan Drew" wrote in message
om...

"Rich" wrote in message
...

"john" wrote in message
...

"Rich" wrote in message
...

Ilena wrote in message
...
American kids getting high on prescription drugs


So what do you propose should be done about all this, Ilena? Sure,
drug abuse is a problem. What does this have to do with mha? Why post
it here?

Why not?


--


--Rich


it shows the real nature of pharma med (1.5 million benzo addicts UK)
and the need to use nutrients which don't have these problems, quite
aprt from the drug pusing of the drug companies by inventing diseases
such ADHD http://www.adhdfraud.com/

So if you come to my emergency room with a broken leg, you want some
nutrients instead of narcotics? It's a deal. By the way, ADHD
medications are not "benzo's."

I think you skipped right over the point.

In FACT ADHD medications are now going to have *black box* warnings.

This is what is given to kids as young as age two and three.


So what's that got to do with people abusing prescription narcotics?

See the title of the thread, Rich?

American kids getting high on prescription drugs

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi...&date=20060224

Excerpts:

Millions have misused ADHD stimulant drugs, study says

"Houston, we have got a problem because we are just in the middle of this
epidemic."

More than nuff said.

No, that's not "nuff." It doesn't answer my question to Ilena, "What do you
propose we do about it?" All of the drugs that are being abused have
legitimate medical uses and cannot be "banned" without causing widespread
unnecessary suffering. I KNOW that you do not believe that ADHD medications
should exist, but you are wrong, and that still has nothing to do with
oxycontin and other prescription narcotics.
--


--Rich

Recommended websites:

http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles
http://www.acahf.org.au
http://www.quackwatch.org/
http://www.skeptic.com/
http://www.csicop.org/