"The changing patterns of medical use of medications has had a huge influence on patterns of common substance abuse among teens," said Carl Olding on Lon Woodbury's Internet Talk Show "Parent Choices for Struggling Teens" Monday, August 15th on
LATalkRadio.
"OxyContin, for example, is being used less by medical facilities which has reduced its use as a drug to be abused," said Olding, "but Heroin is making a huge comeback as an abused drug of choice."
"As Ritalin and other drugs treating ADD and ADHD are being increasingly prescribed," Olding continued, "a brisk trade is growing in re-directing the drugs to abuse and teens are becoming increasingly sophisticated in getting it into the drug underground."
"As an example, I had one student a few years ago tell me his mother had been giving him a bottle of Ritalin each month," Olding reported, "with the mother feeling it was working because he was calmer and slept better."
"Actually what the student told me was happening," Olding concluded, "was he was selling the Ritalin for $5 a pill and using that to buy and smoke Marijuana."
"One of the main sources of medications for abuse is home medicine cabinets," Olding pointed out, "and the main way this can be cut off from abuse is for parents and grandparents to lock their medicine cabinets and not let old expired prescriptions lay around forgotten."
To listen to the full discussion visit
www.latalkradio.com/Lon.php.
Lon Woodbury, MA, IECA, CEP is the owner/founder of Woodbury Reports, Inc and
www.strugglingteens.com. He has worked with families and struggling teens since 1984, and is the Host of Parent Choices for Struggling Teens on
LATalkRadio Mondays at 12:00 Noon, PT.
Elk Mountain Academy is a therapeutic boarding school that works with young men, ages 14-18 years old who struggle with substance and alcohol abuse, behavioral issues and academic deficiencies; offering their students a program based on 12 step recovery, experiential therapy and life skills for sober living and sober fun.