Parents warned to lock up their prescription drugs

 

CALDWELL -- A warning to parents -- lock your medicine cabinets or monitor your medicine bottles.

Prescription drugs are one of the most popular ways for teenagers to get high.

To help combat the growing problem, Canyon County, Nampa and Caldwell will be hold drug drop off sites to dispose of unused meds.

That medicine cabinet that so many families have easy access to in their homes is actually turning into the unexpected drug dealer, and parents don't even realize it.

"I started when I was 12 years old, had a surgery, I had my appendix taken out and the doctor prescribed me a couple of refills and I just got hooked from there, then on out, my whole high school and middle school years," said Adam Garcia.

His parents didn't know that Adam stole from their medicine cabinet, and when that became too difficult, he stole things to pay for the pills.  He used for six years and was high through his entire junior high and high school education.

It's a common trend among teens.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, one and 10 teens around the nation has or is right now abusing prescription drugs.

At the Center for Behavioral Health in Meridian, on a daily basis, users seek treatment for their addictions. 

Of those, 80 percent are addicted to pills and the other 20 percent to heroin.

It's an expensive habit at a dollar a pill.  A user can take up to 200 pills a day.

"Anybody has them, you just asking any of your friends, you know.  'Hey you got any vicadin?'  Yeah my mom does or whatever, and they'll sell them to me, or they will grab it from their mom and they well sell them to me.  It's that easy, It's that simple. It's like getting candy, it really is," said Garcia.

"We have a lot of college students here, we see all walks of life here, but it is the younger kids that are coming in," said Lori Farrens, Center for Behavioral Health.

The drugs being most abused are opiates -- that's oxycontin, oxycodone, and vicadin.

Prescription drug users don't have a lot of signs that they are abusing.  There are no sores or scabs.  But there can be injection lines, or abusers tend to nod off and have very small pupils.