Teens becoming 'Generation Rx'

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NEW YORK (AP) -- The nation's teenagers are increasingly trying prescription drugs such as Vicodin and OxyContin to get high, with the pill-popping members of "Generation Rx" often raiding their parents' medicine cabinets, according to the latest national study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

The 17th annual study on teen drug abuse, released Thursday morning, found that about one in five teenagers has abused a prescription painkiller -- more than have experimented with either Ecstasy, cocaine, crack or LSD. One in 11 teens had abused over-the-counter products such as cough medicine, the study reported.

"For the first time, our national study finds 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," said partnership Chairman Roy Bostock. "In other words, Generation Rx has arrived."

According to the survey, the most popular prescription drug abused by teens was Vicodin, with 18 percent -- or about 4.3 million youths -- reporting they had used it to get high. OxyContin and drugs for attention-deficit disorder such as Ritalin/Adderall followed with one in 10 teens reporting they had tried them.

Fewer than half the teens -- 48 percent -- said they saw "great risk" in experimenting with prescription medicines. "Ease of access" was cited as a major factor in trying the medications, with medicine cabinets at home or at friends' homes a likely source, the survey found.

It was only the second year that the survey had studied abuse of legal drugs. For the first time, the survey included a question about the use of over-the-counter products to get high. Nine percent, or about 2.2 million teens, had experimented with cough syrup and other such products, the survey reported.

The number of teens reporting marijuana use declined to 37 percent last year, compared with 42 percent a half-dozen years earlier. Over the same amount of time, ecstasy use declined from 12 percent to 9 percent, while methamphetamine trial dropped from 12 percent to 8 percent.

The 2004 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study surveyed more than 7,300 teens, the largest ongoing analysis of teen drug-related attitudes toward drugs in the country. Its margin of error is plus or minus 1.5 percent.

The nonprofit Partnership for a Drug-Free America, launched in 1987, is a coalition of communications professionals aimed at reducing the demand for illegal drugs.

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The so-called Partnership for a Drug-Free America is a cabal of bidnisssmen concerned solely with their own ability to maintain an adequate supply of willing wage slaves. They're self-interested pigs who will say and do anything. When you see "Partnership for a Drug-Free America" on an ad or a press release, you should take it about as seriously as you take a Gamblers Anonymous press release on Super Bowl Sunday.