Prescription Drugs

by Chris S.

There are several categories of prescription drugs that are abused. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (www.nida.nih.gov) the main categories of abused drugs are: opiates, CNS (central nervous system) depressants, and stimulant. Opiates, with a more spacious amount of users, are abused to slow down the body?s breathing and heart rate. When this is slowed down the body becomes relaxed. CNS depressants have similar effects as opiates; whereas stimulants speed up the body, doing the opposite.

Prescription drugs are intended to be controlled substances, but these controlled drugs aren?t as controlled as their intended. Many people of all age ranges, from adolescents to older men and woman, abuse these drugs. There is also a lack of control in the way the drugs are handled by the pharmacies. But the main reason these drugs aren?t controlled is due to the user distributing their medication or taking more than recommended.

According to the statistics gathered by www.nida.nid.gov an estimated 4 million people use their prescriptions non-medically. This four million accounted for 2 percent of the population 12 and older in 1999. This is a high number of people, and as time goes on this trend increases. These people who abuse drugs soon form tolerances. A tolerance to a drug is when the body starts needing more of the drug to produce the same effects it once had. That leads to anddiction, especially f used for a protracted amount of time.

Part of the bad control is caused by people picking up their prescriptions and then selling the drug to others. The people doing this often lie to the doctor their seeing in order to obtain a prescription from the doctor. Or in some instances people working at doctor?s offices or seeing a doctor will steal the slips needed for the prescription. After the slip is stolen, any drugs name, and the doctors signature can be forged onto it.

Not all drug abuse isn?t from people buying the drug from others. People taking narcotic pain killers that are prescribed to them over a extended period of time may become addicted, and also become addicts.. Once an addict is seriously addicted to medication they will do just about anything needed to get it. Some patients may go to several doctors and not mention they have the same medication from another doctor. When patients do this they show that the drugs aren?t monitored close enough to be controlled. There is little or no way unless told by a patient what another doctor has prescribed. And there is definitely a high number of drugs that are abused.Users may turn from weaker pain killers, such as Tylenol 3s (acemetheamine, and codeine) to stronger ones such as Vicodon, also known as hydrocodon. People abusing these drugs continue to abuse them for one main reason, addiction. All opiates are made from opium, heroin is also made out of this. Heroin is an extremely addictive drug, since these drugs are made out of basically weaker chemicals related to heroin they to are similarly addictive. Also they have similar effects to heroin and are easier to get than heroin so they are abused as alternatives. With continued abuse increasing tolerance means more abuse of the drugs is usually going to take place. That shows addiction to the drug leads to further addiction. This can occur with a common drug called codeine. Codeine is also a product from opium poppies.