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Prescription drug abuse is a significant emerging problem in the United States. It is generally believed that the broad availability of prescription drugs (e.g., via the medicine cabinet, the Internet, and physicians) and misperceptions about their safety make prescription medications particularly prone to abuse.
Prescription medications such as pain relievers, central nervous system (CNS) depressants (tranquilizers and sedatives), and stimulants are highly beneficial treatments for a variety of health conditions. Pain relievers enable individuals with chronic pain to lead productive lives; tranquilizers can reduce anxiety and help patients with sleep disorders; and stimulants help people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) focus their attention. Most people who take prescription medications use them responsibly. But, when abused-that is, taken by someone other than the patient for whom the medication was prescribed, or taken in a manner or dosage other than what was prescribed-prescription medications can produce serious adverse health effects and can lead to addiction.
Prescription drugs that are abused or used for nonmedical reasons can alter brain activity and lead to dependence. Commonly abused classes of prescription drugs include opioids (often prescribed to treat pain), central nervous system depressants (often prescribed to treat anxiety and sleep disorders), and stimulants (prescribed to treat narcolepsy, ADHD, and obesity).
Long-term use of opioids or central nervous system depressants can lead to physical dependence and addiction. Taken in high doses, stimulants can lead to compulsive use, paranoia, dangerously high body temperatures, and irregular heartbeat.
Most commonly abused classes of prescription drugs:
- Opioids, such as OxyContin and Vicodin, which are most often prescribed to treat pain;
- Central nervous system (CNS) depressants, such as Valium and Xanax, which are used to treat anxiety and sleep disorders; and
- Stimulants, which are prescribed to treat certain sleep disorders and attention deficit hyper-activity disorder (ADHD), and include drugs such as Ritalin and Aderol.
Treatments for Prescription Abuse
Several options are available for effectively treating addiction to prescription drugs, depending on the medication being abused. Approaches to treating addiction to pain relievers are drawn from research on treating addiction to heroin, also an opioid, and include medications such as Naltrexone, methadone, and buprenorphine, combined with behavioral counseling.
Psychotherapeutic Usage 2007
- Psychotherapeutics includes the nonmedical use of any prescription-type pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants, or sedatives. Over-the-counter substances are not included. In 2007, there were 2.5 million persons aged 12 or older who used psychotherapeutics nonmedically for the first time within the past year, which averages out to around 7,000 initiates per day. The numbers of new users of specific classes of psychotherapeutics in 2007 were 2.1 million for pain relievers, 1.2 million for tranquilizers, 642,000 for stimulants, and 198,000 for sedatives. There was a significant decrease in the number of past year initiates of stimulants from 2006 (845,000) to 2007 (642,000), but there were no significant changes in the estimates for the remaining psychotherapeutics between these years. The estimated number of past year initiates of nonmedical pain reliever use declined from 2.5 million in 2003 to 2.1 million in 2007.
- The average age at first nonmedical use of any psychotherapeutics among recent initiates aged 12 to 49 was 21.8 years. More specifically, it was 21.2 years for pain relievers, 21.9 years for stimulants, 24.5 years for tranquilizers, and 24.2 years for sedatives.
- In 2007, the number of new nonmedical users of OxyContin® aged 12 or older was 554,000, with an average age at first use of 24.0 years among those aged 12 to 49. These estimates are similar to those for 2006 (533,000 and 22.6 years, respectively).
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