Information on Drug Abuse

Drug abuse in on the rise in this country and prescription drugs are at the forefront of this problem. This serious situation involves all age groups, such as teenagers that obtaining prescription drugs from their parent's medicine cabinets and holding pill swapping parties. Others are obtaining illegal prescriptions online, doctor shopping or buying the drugs from friends. This abuse problem is also prevalent among the rich and the famous. It is what the Drug Enforcement Administration calls the "white collar" abuse and addiction.

On-Line Drug Abuse

• Many of the abused drugs are in the opiate family such as hydrocodone and oxycodone. Benzodiazepine drugs that have a tranquilizing effect are also highly abused. These are easily obtained over the Internet from questionable pharmaceutical sources, many in foreign countries. With just a click of the mouse, these medications are shipped via overnight express by one of the many package delivery companies. This is blatantly drug abuse.

Doctor Shopping Drug Abuse

• Doctor shopping is another way that drug abusers acquire their drugs. They see many doctors, often with bogus physical complaints, to obtain their drug of choice. Each doctor, unaware of the other doctors, will issue a prescription. Pharmacy shopping is another practice for the abuser. A pharmacist legally cannot fill multiple controlled substances for a patient from different doctors. Using different locations to fill the prescriptions allows the abuser to get around this safeguard.

Pill Swapping Drug Abuse

• Pill swapping parties among the teenagers have become prevalent in the past decade. The kids raid their parents medicine cabinets and then get together and share the pills. This strategy of drug abuse can have fatal consequences due to kids overdosing.

Selling Your Prescription Is Drug Abuse

• Another technique used to abuse these drugs is to sell the prescribed drugs instead of taking them. This type of drug dealer is popping up all over the small towns and big cities in this country. Once obtaining the prescription, each Oxycontin pill can be sold for up to $40 a piece depending on the pill and dosage. The average cost of an opiate drug on the street is $1 for every milligram of the painkiller substance in the pill. A person who has a prescription for this type of drug can feasibly make thousands of dollars by selling it. Their cost is little or nothing due to the insurance coverage for these drugs.

Taking Your Child's Medication Is Drug Abuse

• Another type of drug abuse is when the parent takes their child's medication for attention deficit disorder. A drug such as Ritalin is prescribed to a child to help them with their concentration in school. This drug has an opposite effect on adults in which it gives them great amounts of energy. Many parents are using this drug to help get through a long and tiring day

Fraudulent Prescriptions is Drug Abuse

• Fraudulent prescriptions are showing up in pharmacies daily due to the technology of quality copying machines. A prescription is copied and used over and over again at different pharmacies while others just forge them. Calls from people claiming to be from doctors offices calling in a prescription are another technique to obtain drugs. These fraudulent calls and fake prescriptions are federal offenses and can get you prison time.

Drug Abuse With Star Struck Doctors

• The rich and famous are able to conjure up many prescriptions from star struck health care providers resulting in drug abuse. The money that they have can also be used to pay someone large amounts to go to a doctors' office for them with the complaints that would warrant a prescription for their drug of choice. Famous people will use different names and see different doctors, making it impossible to track their drug abuse.