AccuDiagnostics

Posts Tagged ‘Prescription Drugs’

Drug and Alcohol Testing

Teen drug and alcohol statistics are alarming with 1.8 million kids age 12 and over currently using cocaine, which is a stimulant affecting the central nervous system. Cocaine can cause hallucinations, itching and paranoid delusions with prolonged use. Twenty percent of kids in the 8th grade have tried marijuana, which is a mixture of being a stimulant, depressant or hallucinogen. Long-term use can cause respiratory problems, depression, anxiety and psychosis. Prescription drug use is increasing, because many teens think they are safer to use. However, prescription drugs are more addictive and have more severe side effects. Alcohol use among teens costs the U.S. $58 billion every year. Kids, who started drinking at age thirteen, 40% will develop alcohol dependence. Teens, who drank after the age of seventeen, 10% of them will abuse alcohol. Teens are 50 times more likely to use cocaine if they drink.

Alcohol kills more teenagers 6 ½ times more than illicit drugs. It is important to talk to teens about the dangers of drugs and alcohol regularly, because 42 percent of kids are less likely to use if parents talk to them about it compared to those teens whose parents never did.

Parents may find a need to have their teens tested for drugs and alcohol. AccuDiagnostics can meet those needs and minimize the damage to a parent-child relationship from having them tested. Taking your teen to a professional facility like AccuDiagnostics, this will prevent damaging misunderstandings and false accusations. Plus, teens won’t be able to cheat on the drug test, because the rooms where urine samples are collected are free of adulterants.

AccuDiagnostics have review services where drug tests can be evaluated and the cause of a positive result can be researched. Your child may be drug-free, but come back with a positive drug test from something they ate or from medication they are taking. Poppy seeds will produce a positive result for opiates, ADHD medicine will show on a drug test as methamphetamines and marijuana stays in a person’s system for up to a month. By having a drug test performed at AccuDiagnostics, every effort is made to preserve the parent-child relationship.

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Information is provided for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. AccuDiagnostics does not engage in the practice of medicine. The information provided should not be used to diagnose or treat any medical condition. Readers are urged to consult a licensed physician before starting or stopping any medical treatment. Any action by the reader in response to this information is at their discretion, and AccuDiagnostics can in no way be held liable for such action.

Drugs addictions aren’t limited to the streets anymore! America is realizing a growing trend in white collar drug addictions, bringing narcotics off the streets and into the corporate workplace. These white collar addicts are respected members of the community, who own their homes and drive nice cars and hold high-paying jobs. Ironically, they are the new drug crowd.

White collar addicts do not score their drugs on the streets and they certainly don’t function like normal drug addicts. Many use prescription medication as their drugs of choice, often obtaining them legitimately at first for a medical condition and then continuing the dependency through numerous channels. Because the prescriptions do not inhibit their abilities like normal, stereotypical street drugs, these addicts are able to keep their jobs and remain mostly productive members of society.

Contrary to what many people believe, studies have shown that adults are more than twice as likely to be addicted to prescription medications as teenagers. In fact, it has been estimated that as much as 20% of the adult American population are addicted to prescriptions. Many of these prescriptions are supplied by coworkers in the workplace.

The most commonly abused prescriptions are opioids (OxyContin, Vicodin, etc), central nervous system depressants (Valium, Xanax) and stimulants (Ritalin, Aderol). Others find themselves addicted to antidepressants, painkillers, tranquillizers, sleeping aids, and even some over the counter medications like naproxen and cough syrup.

Suppliers of these drugs generally practice “doctor shopping,” where they visit multiple practitioners, including dentists, attempting to receive a prescription for their preferred drug.. Many undercover police investigations have found that these drugs can sell at astonishingly high prices. For example, the “street value” of one Adderall pill can be as high as $15 per pill and OxyContin can sell for as much as $1.00 per milligram—and since OxyContin can come in 80 mg pills, that’s quite a lot!

As evidenced by the following chart, different prescriptions appeal to different age groups and classes.

Drug                                          Average Age of New Users

Assorted pain relievers          21 years old
Stimulants                               22 years old
OxyContin                               24 years old
Sedatives                                 24 years old
Tranquilizers                          25 years old

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Information is provided for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. AccuDiagnostics does not engage in the practice of medicine. The information provided should not be used to diagnose or treat any medical condition. Readers are urged to consult a licensed physician before starting or stopping any medical treatment. Any action by the reader in response to this information is at their discretion, and AccuDiagnostics can in no way be held liable for such action.