Types of Prescription Drug Abuse
Siobhan Morse, Executive Director of The National Institute for Holistic Addiction Studies, explains the types of prescription drug abuse.
What is prescription drug abuse?
Prescription drug abuse is illegal, and it’s defined as taking a prescription by someone other than for whom it was prescribed or taking it in a way or manner other than the way it was prescribed to be taken.
For the user, prescription drug abuse is an inexpensive way to change the way that they feel.
Types of Prescription Drug Abuse
What drugs are commonly abused?
Commonly abused prescription drugs include opioids, narcotics, and pain relievers such as Oxycodone and Vicodin.
Other commonly abused prescription drugs include depressants such as Xanax and Valium and stimulants such as Adderall and Ritalin.
Who abuses prescriptions drugs?
According to the National Household Survey On Drug Abuse, 36 million U.S. residents over the age of 12 have abused prescription drugs at least once in their lifetime.
This is a particularly big problem among our young people. There are 2.7 million 12-17 year olds who report having abused a prescription drug, and nearly 7 million 18-25 year olds report having abused prescription drugs.
How are prescription drugs obtained?
Prescription drugs may be obtained for abuse through unethical medical professionals who sell prescriptions. There is also something called doctor shopping where a patient can go from doctor to doctor and have false complaints in order to obtain prescriptions.
Patients can fraudulently refill prescriptions, and patients can also receive them from peers and friends.
A common way to obtain prescription drugs for abuse is from the medicine cabinet in our own home, where they can be taken from someone who has a legitimate prescription.
How are prescription drugs abused?
Most commonly, prescription drugs come in tablets or capsules so they can be ingested or they can be crushed and snorted through the nose and inhaled through the nose, also called snorting.
Sometimes the user will mixed the crushed powder and water and inject the solution.
What are the risks of abusing prescription drugs?
The risks of abusing prescription drugs vary depending on the type of prescription abused, but these can include life-threatening respiratory depression, the risk of cardiac failure, cardiovascular disease, decreased heart rate, and a risk of seizure.
Psychological effects of abusing prescription drugs include paranoia, social withdrawal and isolation. Those who abuse drugs by injecting them also run the risk of blood borne disease including HIV and hepatitis.
Types of Prescription Drug Abuse
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