Prescription drug abuse is on the rise and the users are not the typical street junkies that come to mind. Teenagers, soccer moms, and white collar businessmen are the people falling prey to this relatively new phenomenon. The drugs are easy to get, cheap and people falsely believe they are safer than street drugs since they are prescribed by a doctor. Vicodin, oxycotin, Demerol, and valium are a few of the most common drugs being used.
The victims don’t usually set out in search of a high. Typically there is a valid reason they are initially prescribed (chronic pain, recovery from surgery, etc.) What transpires afterwards is oftentimes quite tragic. The unsuspecting user doesn’t realize how addicting these substances are and quickly becomes dependent on them just to get through the day. “Doctor shopping” often results where someone goes from doctor to doctor using fake names to stockpile their drug of choice. Before you know it, a previously “normal” law abiding citizen (someone’s spouse, parent, or boss) is lying, stealing and sneaking around just to get a fix.
With teenagers, the start may be for different reasons. They are looking for a high and it’s much easier to raid your parents’ medicine cabinet than to seek out a street drug dealer. It seems like it’s not a real drug anyway if you can legally obtain it and it’s in your law abiding parents’ medicine cabinet. Most parents wouldn’t even notice a few pills or perhaps an entire bottle missing. By the time they do catch on, it’s too late. Their teen is already addicted and has most likely graduated to more serious drugs such as heroin, an epidemic right here on Long Island as well as across the nation.
If it sounds like a dire picture I am painting here, it is. Drug abuse unnecessarily ruins countless lives and prescription drugs are no different than street drugs. The only difference is in logistics (legality, accessibility and cost). The problem stems from the fact that our society as a whole has become too dependent on a quick fix to our problems. When we come down with a cold, instead of resting, drinking fluids, and letting it run its course, we immediately seek out medicine to mask our symptoms. If you pay a visit to a doctor for an ailment, within minutes he or she is whipping out the prescription pad to relieve your symptoms with some cocktail of drugs. The doctor spends all of 5 minutes with you discussing your symptoms and basically slaps a bandaid on a gaping wound by giving you medication designed to treat the symptoms rather than the underlying cause. Discovering and treating the underlying cause may actually require some effort on the part of both the doctor and patient…it’s much easier (and much more profitable) to keep prescribing drugs. The patient is bound to need to come back for more soon enough because the underlying condition has not been addressed and the person’s system will continue to get more and more out of balance.
If you still don’t believe prescription drugs are a problem, take an hour and go watch television. Pay attention to the commercials. Count how many advertisements are for drugs. It is absolutely incredible how much money is spent promoting drugs to the public to solve every problem from impotence to acne. Wouldn’t it be nice to see an advertisement promoting eating more green vegetables and drinking more water to improve your energy levels and help prevent getting sick? Of course you will never see that commercial because there is no money in it for anyone. So let’s just keep pushing drugs to the sick American public so we can keep the pharmaceutical businesses making millions upon millions of dollars every year. That sounds like a good plan, doesn’t it? Read more.
