Drug Abuse in Teens
‘Passive Pusher’ Parents Enabling Drug Abuse in Teens
A new survey reports that inattentive parents are to blame for their children abusing common prescription drugs.
According to questions asked by researchers from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), more teens today say it’s easy to get prescription drugs without a prescription than it was a year ago.
And before you start blaming the Internet, the survey pointed out that in the majority of cases where teens obtained illegal prescription drugs, they got them from their parents’ medicine cabinet.
D’oh!
That’s right, folks. It’s your fault your kid is hopped up on Percocet or Vicodin.
The Columbia University study involved 1,002 kids age 12-17 from April to June of 2008.
The problem, according to Elizabeth Planet, the study’s lead author, is the disconnect between teens and their parents. Most of the parents were not aware of how often teens abuse prescription drugs. But prescription drug abuse among teenagers has been an issue for years, say experts.
Not only did parents not think their teens were taking their meds, there were also large discrepancies in the reporting of how often the teens were out of the house.
Fifty percent of the teens surveyed said they were hanging out with their friends on weekday evenings, while only 14% of the parents said they knew their kids weren’t home.
"Parents are not paying attention," said Planet to reporters. "There are parents who are out in the evening themselves. There are parents out at work."
While marijuana remains the easiest drug for kids to get (in fact, 43% of 17-year-olds surveyed said they could get their hands on some within an hour), prescription drugs are now third on the list, harder to get than cigarettes but easier than beer.
Fifty percent of teens who reported staying out past 10:00 at night said there was drinking and drug abuse occurring among the people they were with. For those who returned home between the hours of 8:00 and 10:00 pm, 29% said there was alcohol and drug use happening.
National Institute on Drug Abuse representative Nora Volkow told reporters that part of the concern with prescription drug abuse is that kids think it’s safe if their parents have it. "Kids think that because these are medicines that are prescribed, they are safe," said Volkow. "[But] the problem is that there is very little difference between the amount they take for a high and the amount that causes an overdose."
CASA’s president Joseph A. Califano had harsher words for those inattentive "problem parents": "Preventing substance abuse among teens is primarily a mom and pop operation. It is inexcusable that so many parents fail to appropriately monitor their children, fail to keep dangerous prescription drugs out of the reach of their children and tolerate drug infected schools," said Califano to reporters.
He added, "By identifying the characteristics of problem parents we seek to identify the actions that parents can take – and avoid – in order to become part of the solution and raise healthy, drug-free children."
By Anastacia Mott Austin
By Buzzle Staff and Agencies
Published: 8/15/2008
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