Pharming: The Dangerous New High (page 2 of 2)

Deadly Doses

Just ask Roger Stone. Last winter, Stone, a fire captain in Olympia, Washington, lost his 18-year-old son, Tyler, to a lethal combination of beer and methadone, a prescription narcotic. Tyler called his parents at 10:30 one night and said he was staying with friends. It was the last time his parents spoke to their son.

Tyler's friends found him unconscious the next morning. They rushed him to the hospital, where he went into cardiac arrest and died.

Prescription drugs are pretty safe when used correctly. But kids take risks. An example: OxyContin. As prescribed, it's a perfectly legitimate pain medication, says A. Thomas McLellan, PhD, director of the Treatment Research Institute in Philadelphia and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. As the pill dissolves, it gradually releases its payload, for long-lasting relief. But teens will often crush the pill before ingesting it, releasing all the medication at once. "One pill could lead to overdose," says McLellan.

Even worse, kids rarely take just one pill. Many of the drugs at pharming parties are depressants, which slow down brain function, says Glen Hanson, PhD, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Utah and former acting director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Now add alcohol, another depressant, to the mix. "All decrease brain activity, and they enhance one another." So a Vicodin-Ambien-Xanax-booze combination can be extremely dangerous. "It can do more than put you to sleep," says Hanson. "You can be put to sleep permanently."

If you combine depressants with stimulants, on the other hand, heartbeat, blood pressure and other systems in the body will start careening up and down. "And the heart doesn't like that," says Hanson. "When you start pushing it around, there could be the danger of arrhythmia. It could progress to a point where the heart is working inefficiently, and then you may have trouble. Things may start collapsing."

Doctors are also concerned that adolescents are taking these drugs while their brains are still forming. "These kids are in a fairly critical stage of brain development," says Hanson. Their decision-making skills are being honed. "And when you disturb that with pharmacology over and over again, the brain may not reach its capacity and may not mature fully. Their ability to make decisions and process information will be compromised, maybe for the rest of their lives."

Why Prescription Drugs?
"About five million school-age children take a prescription drug every day for some sort of behavior disorder," says Carol Falkowski, director of research communications at the Hazelden Foundation. "As a result, kids learn at an early age that if you take a pill, you get a mood change."

And many teens view pharming as safe, since the drugs are of pharmaceutical quality, says Steinhagen. "But that's a frightening myth that can have fatal consequences."

Of course, over-the-counter drugs are also welcome at pharming parties. Kids abuse cold medications made with dextromethorphan, or DXM. Instead of the one or two pills recommended, they'll take two to three boxes' worth at a time, to create a drug-induced psychosis, says Steinhagen.

If they don't have a prescription, teens pan their parents' medicine cabinets and the cabinets at their friends' houses. And they're striking gold online, where they can easily get OxyContin, Xanax, Ritalin and other drugs. According to CASA, 89 percent of websites selling controlled pharmaceuticals have no prescription requirements. "We've found that there is no attempt to block sales to children," says Susan Foster, CASA vice president and director of policy research.

What About the Parents?
Like most parents, Amanda's had no idea that their child was addicted. When parents find out that their kids are abusing prescription drugs, "most breathe a sigh of relief," says Hedrick. "They think, Oh, at least my kid isn't smoking pot or doing heroin."

But prescription drugs can be more potent than street drugs. "One in ten 12th graders admits to using Vicodin at least once in the last year," says McLellan. "If I said one in ten kids is using heroin, people would go through the roof." But while heroin sold on the street might be 10 to 40 percent opiate, pharmaceutical-grade Vicodin could be ten times more powerful an opiate than heroin.

Spiraling out of Control
Amanda took whatever pills she could get, largely because she was finding life hard to take. "There were a lot of issues," she says. She had just found out that her parents were splitting. It took her by surprise -- and she was devastated. "I had no clue. I woke up one morning, and they told me."

On a few occasions during her two years of going to pharming parties, Amanda had what she calls a scare. "My heart would race so fast it felt like it was going to explode. Sometimes I felt woozy and I would pass out," she recalls. "But I had a lot of pride in my drinking and drugging. I was really passionate about it and proud of the fact that I could take more than a lot of people. I could come home and have a conversation with my parents."

Eventually, though, things got out of control. "I couldn't go a day without taking something," she recalls, "and after a while, the pills messed up my stomach; it hurt all the time, and I hardly ate. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I went to my parents and told them I needed help."

Amanda entered a residential treatment program and has been sober since her release last January. "Detox was the worst four days of my entire life," she says. "I didn't think a kid could have any withdrawal symptoms, but I was puking and had the shakes."

She's no longer cavalier about drugs. "I'm so scarred from this," says Amanda, who has ulcers and damaged kidneys from the drugs and alcohol. "I have to struggle daily to stay sober. But in some ways, I feel lucky I went through it, and I'm out of it now."

Before signing in to the treatment program, Amanda, who is now 17, wrote a song called "Goodnight to the Moonlight." Her lyrics: "I'm starting to lose sight of all the things that've made me who I am/Or the will to want to or even think that I can." Amanda says, "It's about how it feels to be taking drugs and alcohol, how it hurts, how it makes you feel like you're losing yourself.

"I want people who are getting into drugs to know how bad it can get and to let them know there's a way out."

From Reader's Digest - November 2006

 

• • Parenting Teens
• • Watercooler
• • Homemade Remedies
• • Prescription Drugs

• Drug Use Warning Signs
• Be vigilant in protecting your children from drugs -- even legal ones can kill.
• 
• Dancing With Death: Club Drugs
• Teenagers across the country are falling victim to the dangers of a "fashionable" drug called GHB. Is your child at risk?
• 
• Drugs: Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask
• 
• The Safety of Prescription Drugs: Major Reality Check
• Worried about prescription drugs? How to weigh your risk.
• 
• Illegal Online Pharmacies: Warning Signs
• How one teenager lost his life buying drugs online.
• 
• Heroin: The Tragic Consequences
• 

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