Not only is it illegal to drink before age 21, but drinking too much alcohol can impair brain function and motor skills and lead to addiction. Mixing alcohol with illicit or other drugs—even legal ones—greatly increases the dangers:

Combining alcohol with another central nervous system depressant like Xanax or painkillers like Vicodin can slow your heartbeat and breathing and may lead to death.

Mixing alcohol with stimulants like Adderall or club drugs  like Ecstasy can cause heart problems, too, as well as strokes and convulsions.

Cough and cold medicines that don’t need a prescription can mess you up if you abuse them or combine them with alcohol—once again, heart problems and trouble breathing.

Play it safe and don’t mix alcohol with other drugs.

Click Image to Go to Video

In the video, “Get Back in the Game:  Use Painkillers Safely,” NIDA scientists Dr. Cindy Miner and Dr. Joni Rutter describe what can happen when a person abuses painkillers.

What is considered prescription drug abuse?  Here are some examples:

• Taking someone else’s prescription
• Taking more than prescribed for you, or for a reason other than intended
• Mixing prescription drugs with alcohol or other drugs

To learn more, take a look at the materials in NIDA’s PEERx initiative.

Prescription drug abuse is actually a serious public health problem in this country, and is growing in teens.  You can help turn it around by raising awareness among your friends and family.  Prescription drug abuse IS drug abuse, period.

What drug is most often used by teens in the USA?

Every year since 1975, the Monitoring the Future Study has surveyed teens to better understand their drug use rates, attitudes, and beliefs. Looking over the past 10 years, data show that more and more teens are saying no to drugs, period. They are not even trying them once.

Still, to answer the question, statistics from 2009 (PDF, 362.76KB) show that the drug most often abused by teens in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades is alcohol, followed by marijuana. The third most abused drug varies by grade—for 8^th graders, it’s inhalants. For 10^th and 12^th graders, it’s Vicodin (a prescription medication for pain). Here’s a little more info:

• Alcohol

So, even though alcohol might be the drug most abused by teens, the good news is that the number of teens who report drinking in the last 30 days has gradually declined by as much as 40% over the past 35 years. You go, Gen Y!

• Marijuana

Seems marijuana use is slowly creeping upwards after a steady decline that lasted almost 10 years. What’s up with that? The answer may have to do with the fact that  young people are seeing marijuana as less risky than before and are more accepting of its use in general.

• Inhalants and Vicodin

With both inhalants and Vicodin, the rates of abuse among teens are about the same as they have been for the past 2-3 years. That’s pretty positive, especially since the study only recently started looking at trends in prescription drugs.

Your Turn

Carry out your own mini-study and see what drugs friends, relatives, or teachers think are most often abused by teens. Feel free to share what you found out with us in the comments. Spread the word, and help set the record straight.

Opioids, also known as “opiates,” are a class of drugs with powerful pain-relieving properties. So, some are prescribed by doctors like Percocet, Vicodin, and codeine for people who need them. But then there are also street drugs like heroin that are also opioids—so yeah, Vicodin and heroin are in the same class of drugs!

When prescribed by a doctor, opioids can be used in a responsible way to reduce pain, treat diarrhea, or control coughing. Inside our bodies, opioids link to receptors in the brain, spinal cord, and gut, much like pieces in a puzzle. When they do, they can block the experience of pain.  For example, morphine is sometimes given to people before or after surgery. However, opioids can also affect parts of the brain that control feelings of pleasure, producing a sense of euphoria that makes people want to take them again and again even when they’re not in pain. When people keep taking them like that, opioids can actually change the way the brain works, causing strong cravings that are of part of having an addiction.

NIDA scientists have put together a lot of information on opiates – learn more at Mind Over Matter: Opiates, Research Report Series – Prescription Drugs: Abuse and Addiction, NIDA InfoFacts: Heroin.

What can we expect from NIDA scientists in the year 2010? Here are just a few of the questions researchers will be working on in the coming year:

• How can we best use the Internet to help people with drug problems?
• Can we really get a vaccine for people addicted to cigarettes, or to illegal drugs like cocaine, to help them quit and prevent them from starting up again?
• How does smoking affect bone health in teen girls?
• What is the best way to help people addicted to prescription drugs like Vicodin and Oxycontin?
• How can we develop pain medications that are as strong as Vicodin but will not get you addicted?
• How can we use the part of marijuana that might work as a medicine and give it to people in a safe way?

So 2010 should be an exciting year! And SBB “resolves” to be right here to tell you about it. Happy New Year everyone- What’s 2010 look like for all of you?

So, why would someone take a prescription drug that wasn’t theirs? Research shows there are many reasons.

While a number of young people take prescription drugs to get high, many teens, especially girls, take them to help them concentrate when studying or to deal with physical pain. Even this type of use is considered “abuse” and is illegal since the drug was not prescribed for that person.   

 Not only is it illegal but it might end up affecting your health. Even if you follow the directions on the label, those instructions were written for someone else. For example, different body weights require different dosages for many medicines.

You might be saying, “Well, my friend took a prescription drug that wasn’t hers and she was ok.   What’s the big deal?” Maybe for your friend, or even you, it was fine that time-but that may not be the case the next time. Some people aren’t so lucky (like Heath Ledger). Different drugs have different effects. For example, abusing stimulants could cause your blood pressure to become dangerously high or lead to an irregular heartbeat. Or if opioids are taken with alcohol or antihistamines, they can cause you to stop breathing.

Writing this reminded me of a story I heard about an acquaintance who decided to try OxyContin at a party. She had been drinking when she took the pill and didn’t know that OxyContin mixed with alcohol can have some pretty nasty effects. She became disoriented, got separated from her friends, and passed out. Fortunately, her friends found her and she recovered.  She decided never again to take that kind of risk, but it’s too bad she had to go through such a scary ordeal before making that choice.

When you’re faced with the option to use a prescription drug that’s not yours, pause and ask yourself… Is this something I really want to add to the mix? Do I want to take the chance of putting myself and my friends through what could happen? If you’re reading this, you’ve shown that you care about yourself and your future.   Show you care the next time you face a tough choice about whether or not to pop a pill that’s not yours.

Bio: Anna is a public health analyst with NIDA. She spends a lot of time looking at numbers and answering questions about drug abuse statistics. When she’s not doing that she’s usually at the gym, finding new restaurants, or spending time with her family.

We talked to the NIDA Communications Director, Carol Krause (pictured right), about how they handle calls like that.

Sara Bellum Blog: How many calls does NIDA get when news like this hits?

Carol: Well it depends on the celebrity and how definite the news is. With Anna Nicole Smith, speculation was immediate that drug abuse was involved, so we got a lot of calls from the press right away. With Heath Ledger, people weren’t so sure, and the inquiries came gradually, over a period of weeks.

SBB: And Michael Jackson?

Carol: Within a few hours of his death, the NIDA press office got maybe a dozen calls from major news reporters wanting information on prescription drug abuse. They were doing research in case toxicology reports came back saying that medication misuse contributed to the pop icon’s death.

SBB: And what do you tell them?

Carol: We treat this like any other inquiry. We give them facts. The fact is that between the years of 1999 and 2005, the number of accidental deaths from drug overdoses in this country more than doubled to 22,448.

SBB: Really? Why?

Carol: The biggest problem is the increased misuse and abuse of prescription painkillers—opioid narcotics like Vicodin and OxyContin.

SBB: Is this a problem with teenagers?

Carol: Absolutely. For the past five years, one in ten high school seniors have reported they use Vicodin without a prescription—one in twenty have used OxyContin.

SBB: Why isn’t the press reporting this?

Carol: Oh they are. The question is—are teens listening?

SBB: I’d like to think teens are smart enough to know that using medications without a prescription can be dangerous. What is the take away lesson from Michael Jackson’s death?

Carol: That we don’t need a tragedy like this to learn how to make smart decisions about your health. The information you need is right here on the NIDA website.