Drug Rehab Florida: Is that Your Prescription?

It's so widespread that in 2006 the number of new individuals, aged 12 and over, who abused prescription drugs was even with the number of new individuals abusing marijuana. That the first time that's ever happened.

When you realize that at least half of high school students in Tampa, Florida have tried marijuana you begin to understand the magnitude of the problem and the rising numbers of new drug rehab programs across the state.

You may have heard some of the horror stories about teens and prescription medication. Stories about underground parties where kids bring mixes of pharmaceuticals they have collected and share with others. "Pharm Parties" as they like to call them. It's undoubtedly something to be watched for.

More importantly we need to watch for signs of the issues the adolescents are abusing other people's prescription medication to alleviate. Ailments such as pain, exhaustion, mood swings or anxiety to name a few of them. What kids today don't understand is that self medicating can kill them.

Using medication prescribed for another is a dangerous game not to mention extremely additive particularly if the medication is a painkiller such as OxyContin or Vicodin (the two most commonly abused prescription drugs). These painkillers are opiate based meaning they derive from the opium poppy plant. It's the same plant used to make the illicit drug heroin and it has contributed to a 300 percent increase in the number of teens checking in for drug rehab treatment in the last ten years.

Kids have developed the idea, a consequence of the lack of information given them on the subject of drugs, that because these drugs are prescribed they are safe even though the prescription isn't for them. They actually consider their use of these drugs as responsible and controlled. Unfortunately, this behavior is so common that one third of teens feel pressure to use prescription drugs and consider it an important part of fitting in.

Perhaps this problem has developed because many of us think that everyone should know, almost inherently, that you don't use another's prescription medication. Or perhaps it's because in today's day and age, there's a prescription pill or over the counter medicine for just about every ailment under the sun whether real or imagined.

Either way, it's effectively inhibited information about the subject to our children. Instead a void has been created and our kids are filling it with: "It's safe since it's from a doctor". "It's a controlled medicine therefore I'm being responsible".

It's time to sit down with our kids and give them the real facts about prescription medicine abuse. For more information or immedeate help with drug rehab or drug addiction visit drug rehab referral today.