A common party game among teens has them dip their hands into bowls filled with randomly assorted prescription drugs and then take whatever pills they pull out.
“It’s a nightmare for emergency rooms,” said Jeffrey Baldwin, Pharm.D., professor in the College of Pharmacy. “Teens are coming in with overdosages of drugs and we don’t even know what they’re taking.”
Such acts add weight to recent news that drug deaths now outnumber auto fatalities in the United States. Reports point to a rise in prescription drug abuse as a main culprit.
Listen to a conversation with Dr. Baldwin in which he discusses the rise in prescription drug abuse and learn how:
- Many addicts feed their habits in their grandmothers’ medicine cabinets;
- Many of those killed by prescription drug abuse are young people;
- Patients often get prescribed more pain medication than is needed, which puts an excess of drugs into the public realm where they often end up in the wrong hands; and
- There are limited opportunities and awareness regarding the proper disposal of excess drugs. (See sidebar for an upcoming Prescription Drug Take Back opportunity.)