Survey: High Schoolers Abusing Prescription Meds

(June 4) -- One in five American high school students has knowingly misused prescription drugs, according to a federal report that also highlights the failure to curb drug use among teens.

The survey, conducted every other year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since 1991, polled 16,000 teens on a myriad of health metrics, from fruit and vegetable consumption to cigarette smoking habits.

Teens were asked whether they'd ever tried drugs, like OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin and Ritalin, without orders from a doctor.

White students were most likely to report using prescription drugs, and the experimentation became increasingly prevalent with age. Only 15 percent of ninth-grade students had tried prescription drugs, but that surged to 26 percent by 12th grade.

"Some people may falsely believe that prescription drugs are safer than illegal drugs," Howell Wechsler, director of the CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health, said in a statement. "Yet their misuse can cause serious adverse health effects, including addiction and death."

It's too soon to tell, based on this study, whether prescription drug use among teens is a burgeoning problem. This is the first year that researchers have collected data on prescription medications, and information collected during the 2011 survey won't be released until 2012.

But because the drugs likely are easier to access, it's no surprise that their use was more common than that for many illegal substances. Hallucinogens had been tried by only 8 percent of teens, followed by Ecstasy at 6.7 percent and cocaine at 6.4 percent.

Marijuana use continued to be a popular teen pastime, with more than one-third of teens having tried it. More than one in five admitted smoking pot within the last month.

Overall, the results were largely the same as those reported in 2007.

Even though the findings are preliminary, the prevalence of prescription drug use has some experts calling for immediate action, including the addition of prescription meds to drug education classes.

In the long term, however, preventive health care would be the most effective way to curb the problem, Dr. David Katz of the Yale University School of Medicine told Business Week.

"Parental awareness, which this report helps cultivate, and vigilance will be more important still," he said. "But perhaps the ultimate solution to this problem is a more dedicated societal commitment to disease prevention and health promotion, so that fewer prescription drugs are in circulation and available for such misuse."

And the finding isn't the first suggestion that teens are misusing prescription drugs with increasing prevalence. A 2007 federal survey, this one funded by the National Institute on Drug Use, warned that use of prescription OxyContin among high school seniors had surged 30 percent since 2002, to 5.2 percent.