Prescription Drug Abuse

I'm aware the textbook doesn't cover any information on prescription drugs, but considering some prescription drugs are stimulant drugs as well and they're so commonly abused now days, I figured I'd expand on this topic. "After marijuana, prescription and over-the-counter medications account for most of the past-year use of commonly abused drugs among high school seniors." Approximately every day in the United States, an average of about 2000 teenagers use prescription drugs without a doctor's guidance for the first time. 

Data for past-year use of prescription and over-the-counter medicines include the following: Vicodin (8%), Adderall (6.5%), Salvia (5.9%), Tranquilizers (5.6%), Cough Medicine (5.3%), OxyContin (4.9%), Sedatives (4/3%), and Ritalin (2.6%), a combined total of 37.2%. Data for past-year use of illicit drugs includes the following: Marijuana/Hashish (36.4%), Synthetic Marijuana (11.4%), Salvia (5.9%), MDMA (Ecstasy 5.3%), Hallucinogens (5.2%), Inhalants (3.2%), and Cocaine (any form, 2.9 %).

Prescription drug abuse is when a human being takes a prescription drug, usually prescribed for someone else, or in a different dosage than that prescribed to them. The most common of these drugs are at two different extremes; pain relievers or depressants and amphetamines (stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderal). Some pain relievers include: Vicodin, Oxycotin, Xanax, and Valium.  

People abuse these prescription drugs for a number of reasons, including to get high, treat pain; or because they believe it will help them with their schoolwork, by being more alert, attentive, working faster or retaining information better. A study showed that males are more likely to use these stimulants to get high, while females tend to use for attention benefits. It is also known that teenagers will not only take the drugs orally, but might even crush the pills, and snort or inject them into their bodies. 

Many people think that abusing prescription drugs is safer than abusing illicit drugs like heroin and cocaine because the manufacturing of these drugs are regulated and given by doctors. However, this doesn't mean that it is safe in any way. They too have powerful effects in the brain and body. For example, opioid painkillers act on the same sites in the brain as heroine does. Amphetamines bind to transporters used for the reuptake of dopamine into presynaptic neurons. This then causes the level of dopamine to rise in the synapses, and as we read in the textbook, high levels of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (in the brain) mediate pleasurable effects, keeping these young teenagers wanting more of this feeling. Long term uses of certain prescription drugs can lead to physical dependence and eventually tolerance. This means that one's body will sooner or later adapt to this drug exposure, causing him/her to need a larger doses of it in order to achieve the same initial effects. Withdrawal symptoms can and most likely will occur also once the use of the drug is stopped.