ChickSpeak

From Adderall to Xanax, how easy are prescription drugs (just not your Rx’s) to come by at your school?

According to recent reports based on a survey of over 3,600 college students in the US, kids who abuse prescription drugs in order to get high are more common than you may guess.

 The findings of this University of Michigan survey showed that about one out of every five students claims to have abused painkillers and prescription drugs for “non-medicinal” reasons at some point in time.

And students who take prescription drugs for non-medical reasons are at least five times more likely to meet the definition of having a drug abuse problem than students not abusing them, the researchers reported in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

If you think about it, it is presumably a very slippery slope. For example, someone asks a friend with a legit ADD diagnosis for one or two Ritalin to get her through exams, improve normal concentration and stay awake… but then how easy is it to stop after one round of that kind of “quick fix” behavior, even if you consider yourself a normal person and totally not the type of gal to be a druggie?

For the expert opinion and the full story, check out this link from Reuters for writer Will Dunham’s research.