Generation 'Rx'

When one thinks of teens and drugs, illegal substances such as marijuana and cocaine immediately come to mind. However, the real culprits aren't the drug pushers in the school yards; it's the medicine cabinets in their own homes. A national study has revealed that today's teens are more likely to have abused a prescription painkiller to get high than they are to have experimented with a variety of illegal drugs; 'Generation Rx' has arrived. Although this fact is initially surprising, when one reviews the reasons why teens turn to marijuana, one can easily see why prescription drugs have become even more popular.

The reasons teens use marijuana, repeated below, are even truer for prescription drugs.

Parents don't discuss the danger of drugs with their children.

Teens are left with less adult supervision because of societal changes.

Young people have more access now than they had ever had before.

Youth are receiving the message by different sources such as magazines, song lyrics, videos, movies and symbols on clothing or other products that marijuana is cool and everybody is using it.

In recent years people were led to believe that marijuana is of less concern.

People were even led to believe that marijuana could have benefits.

Just like marijuana, parents don't discuss the dangers of prescription drugs with their children and prescription drug use can even take place under adult supervision because it is more difficult to detect than smoking marijuana. It's even easier for teens to access drugs that are readily available in their own homes than to find illicit drugs. And, because prescriptions drugs are sanctioned by the medical profession and their benefits are now allowed to be advertised in the mass media, then teens mistakenly believe that they can't be that bad. In other words, there's been a prescription for disaster, 'Generation Rx'.

Bibliography

Teens becoming 'Generation Rx'" CNN 22 Apr. 2005. Available:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/parenting/04/21/drug.survey.ap/(Accessed 24 Apr. 2005).

Use Of Drugs Among Teens And The Reasons Why They Use It." Available:

http://www.casacanada.com/drug3.html (Accessed 24 Apr. 2005).