Prescription drugs abused by many students
Amanda Teller
Prescription drug abuse continues to rise due to the ease of obtaining these controlled substances that are as addictive and dangerous as illegal street drugs. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration Web Site, seven million Americans abuse prescription drugs, more than heroin, cocaine, hallucinogens, ecstasy and inhalant abusers combined.
However, prescription drugs are ranked under marijuana as the nation’s most prevalent illegal drug abused, according to the White House Drug Control policy website.
One Mesa pharmacist, Jack Shalita, said the pharmacy can only take minor precautions in order to prevent prescriptions from getting into the wrong hands.
“The pharmacies are not policeman so we cannot arrest anybody. All we can do is inform and try and prevent that from happening,” said Shalita, who has been a pharmacist for 48 years.
“Basically we scan prescriptions and if we have any doubts, we contact the prescribing doctor and we find out whether or not the prescription was legitimate,” Shalita said.
“And if not we contact the proper authorities,” he added.
Due to the easy access to prescription drugs, abusers have multiple ways of getting prescriptions by either “doctor-shopping”, traditional drug-dealing, ordering via the Internet, or getting them off of relatives or friends, according to the DEA Web Site.
“Much of this abuse appears to be fueled by the relative ease of access to prescription drugs,” listed on the website.
“Approximately 60 percent of people who abuse prescription pain killers indicate that they got their prescription drugs from a friend or relative for free,” Shalita said.
With the growing abuse, restriction on simple cough medicine has now forced stores to record and require identification in order to purchase cough medicine containing pseudoephedrine.
“One of the ingredients use in making the methamphetamines is the pseudoephedrine products, which we can control by the amount we sale at each location,” Shalita said.
“We require identification and we keep a record which is available to the police department and the drug enforcement agency,” he added.
