Practical Tips to Prevent Prescription Drug Abuse

Preventing prescription drug abuse has to be addressed on more than one level. It has to be more than just getting rid of prescriptions that are lying around the house and not sharing medications with people that they are not prescribed for. Preventing abuse effectively has to be done by offering updated information for educational purposes. It is also critical to enforce stricter rules and penalties for doctors who seem to have no problems writing prescriptions for addictive and dangerous drugs repeatedly to patients. Then it will be possible to use the other methods to work effectively in preventing such abuse. At Stillwater Treatment, all types of drug abuse prevention programs are available.

This type of abuse has grown to epidemic proportions. Today, most first-time drug abuse experiences come in the form of prescription drugs. Even more alarming is the fact that this abuse includes people ages 12 and over.

People that start this abuse often feel that it is safer than illicit street drugs because they were prescribed by a doctor, regardless of who they were prescribed to. Another huge step in preventing prescription drug abuse is going to be to expunge these fictitious notions from the mind of the public. This means that the public health sector has its work cut out for them. A solid prevention plan will only work when it includes a strategy of education, observation, appropriate disposal of medication, and then the proper enforcement.

Prescription drug abuse education must include informing everyone, such as parents, children and adolescents, patients, and doctors, about this hazard. This would also include educating them on how to store them and how and when to get rid of prescriptions that are no longer needed.

Observation or monitoring is also vital and may even be the most vital component. These efforts must be addressed in every state and include extensive monitoring of those who engage in doctor shopping, emergency room visits, and also include an extensive cross-checking system for those who use insurance to cover one prescription while paying cash for another at a different pharmacy. We need to design a system that makes such abuse a difficult or futile exercise.

Prescription drug abuse must also include offering the ability to dispose of unused prescription drugs in the home. This could possibly be done effectively by using a program that offers incentives to those who do dispose of their prescriptions correctly. The plan to prevent abuse and bring the statistics way down has to include the most severe law enforcement tactics. Law enforcement officials must have the proper tools and education to enforce the law and regulate those that are prescribing these drugs and make pill mills obsolete.

This abuse falls right under marijuana abuse as being the second most abused substance. It is not hard to figure out where these pills are coming from either. More than 70% of those who abuse prescription drugs get them from family or friends. This is made possible by those who do not dispose of unused medications or who do not put them in a safe and locked place.

We must be able to accept the responsibility and attempt to make changes in the rates of prescription drug abuse before it gets even worse. Preventing prescription drug abuse has to be a top priority. We must apply a multi-layer approach to a problem that is at epidemic proportions.