Prescription Drugs Easy To Come By In Area Schools

By Mikenzie O’Grady

School, stress, friends, work = pressure. Every student is looking for a way out, pushing many young adults into the world of prescription drugs. Rx drugs are very easy to come by for students living at home, many have access to their parent’s medication which can easily be sold or consumed. 

A surprising number of students admitted to having taken prescription pills that didn’t belong to them. Their reasoning varied greatly: from a need for help with focus, to those that sought a “high”, to students complaining of difficulty sleeping. 
For the most part abuse of prescription drugs does not seem to be an issue at Steinbrenner High School. When polled, one drug in particular is common amongst students that admitted to occasional use; Xanax pills, otherwise known as “bars” have become relatively common. The effects of Xanax are much like those of alcohol or smoking marijuana which makes it highly appealing. It is also very common for students who abuse Xanax to smoke marijuana products due to the similarities. 

It is extremely easy for students to get a hold of prescribed Xanax, very often doctors at Walk-in-Clinics will fill prescriptions for a variety of pain killers and depressants with very little focus on the patients actual needs. Clinics like these are known as “pill mills” and will even prescribe medications such as Oxycodone to patients that really don’t need it. 

Oxycodone is actually the most abused prescribed medication in the state of Florida. Many online  sources say that the state of Florida fills ten times more prescriptions for oxycodone than all other states combined. The abuse is beginning to spread into high schools as students steal and sell their parents pills, which is a major problem because of the highly addictive properties of most prescription drugs. 

Starting life fresh out of high school with an addiction to bars or “Oxy” is not exactly ideal and the abuse must stop. According to a national study over 33,000 teens and young adults die a year from drug overdoses. These overdoses are primarily not from cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamines; the majority is actually from prescription Oxycontin. 

Since 2005 the number of deaths caused by over dosage has increased by 60%, astounding numbers in relation to the American population. Typically the abusers of prescription pills (at the high school level) range between the ages of 15 and 17, and the majority of these drug users end up living violent or criminal lives post graduation. 

Many who are working to fight the abuse of Rx drugs in schools say that the first step is to monitor prescriptions being filled by doctors, others suggest that the first step needed is in the household. Saying that parents need to better monitor the actions of their children, however in many cases students are able to get a hold of these drugs because their parents themselves have addictions. So the question remains, what are we doing to fight substance abuse in schools and at home?