February 2, 2008 - Teens and Prescription Drugs
BREAKTHROUGH ADDICTION RECOVERY HOUR
FEBRUARY 2, 2008
TEENS AND PRESCRIPTION DRUGS
SPECIAL GUEST: LAURA ASHLEY OVERDYKE
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING
AND MARKETING FOR THE
NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY
Brian: Welcome to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour and call us with your questions and comments at 770-226-0920. My co-host is Jill Mattingly and we are very excited today to be talking with our audience, we have a fantastic show for you today, and you know last week Jill we were talking with Paul and getting some very good information about his recovery from opiate addiction and he has a wonderful written story and we would love to encourage our listening audience that if they have any interested in learning more about opiates, opiate addiction and recovery they can call us at our office at 770-734-8091 and request a copy of that story, I know that many of our clients who have come in and had a chance to read it have said, “Wow, that helps me understand the issues I am facing…”
Jill: A lot of my clients that come in for opiate addiction addiction treatment, I give them a copy while they wait in the office during the suboxone induction and the person that they are with is usually the mother or spouse and they read it together and when I come back into the room, actually this happened the other day, the grandmother said, ” I am making copies for everyone in the family!” because it is such a great description of what a person goes through in the slide into opiate addiction pain medications addiction and I really do encourage you if you have a family member or friend or if you need to understand what is happening with someone put in a call to our office and we will definitely love to send that out to you. It was a fantastic show last week, it got to me
Brian: Even when the clients come into our addiction treatment program, they say it really meant a lot to them cause it gave them the heads up as to what they were facing and increased their commitment to stay in addiction treatment and I am very excited about our guest today. I was just looking through some material and as we talk to our audience there are some interesting facts as it relates to adolescence. You know we talk about adults and of course we had your niece on here and how easy it is in the schools to get pain killers and I was noticing here that for those that are listening, in the past year there were 12.6 million non medical users of pain relievers. 70% obtained from a friend or relative. I am very excited about our guest, and I guess you would like to give her introduction and talk about this new initiative being taken by the Federal Government.
Jill: Our special guest is Laura Ashley Overdyke and she is the Deputy Director for Advertising and Marketing for the Office of the National Drug Control Policy, that is a lot to say , ok, you know,
LA: The name alone is a lot
Jill: What I understand is that you have been working with the National Youth Anti-Drug Campaign for almost five years and focusing on the very thing we have been talking about which is prescription drug addiction and over the counter drug addiction by teens and adolescents going into adulthood.
LA: The good news is that drug use over all pot, cocaine, meth and even alcohol is way down among teens, but with prescription drugs that is just not the case and there is a huge threat and it is largely coming from the family medicine cabinet.
Jill: That is interesting and I know that tomorrow is actually the big day for this and not because it is the super bowl it is what is happening during the super bowl so tell us what you have been working on la
LA: We are going to launch our brand new prescription drug campaign in the big game before half time we will have one of our two ads that will come on and then these great ads will be running for over two months and we will reach out to parents and other responsible adults through the tv ads and print ads and through interactive brochures and by the time we are done we expect to reach at least 90% of our parent target audience
Jill: Fantastic
Brian: Tell me more about the interactive advertising…..
LA: Well in a 30 second ad there is only so much you can share and so the internet gives us the opportunity to give more information and they can go to the website TheAntiDrug.com and on that site they can hear from other parents who may have dealt with the same problem and may have found out what these drugs are and get specific information about what to do in their own home to prevent the drug addiction in the first place.
Jill: I am just so excited about this. I went to your website and was looking at some of the ads that are going to be in the Super Bowl tomorrow. All we hear about is how you know, Budweiser’s ad is coming out and I mean I think people are going to be very surprised while waiting for the next beer commercial and they see something about their teens possibly using their own medications from their very own medicine cabinet.
LA: Yeah, it isn’t exactly the usual stuff you see during the Super Bowl. The good news is that when parents see this they will be 50 yards from the source of these drugs, the medicine cabinet. Unlike street drugs like Heroin, you can’t be there everywhere with your teen, this is something that is probably in your own house and you have total control over.
Brian: I was wondering what is the purpose and function of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
LA: Of course, the nic name is the Drug Czar’s Office. It was created because the federal government does a lot on drug prevention and enforcement and on addiction treatment programs and they needed one person to sort of oversee the entire budget for the whole Federal Government and that is what that office does.
Jill: Who is the current drug CZAR?
LA: John P. Walters and he has held the office since 2001.
Jill: I should know that, well you know the other thing I was thinking about is what else are they doing in terms of you know they have got some great advertising but what about giving long term information you know the reports that you have been meticulously putting together. How are you getting that out to the public.
LA: Well our office has been doing a lot of funding for research and there are some great national surveys that come out every year but that is how we were alerted to this trend in the first place. We watch very closely these national numbers and we kept seeing the prescription drug numbers going in the wrong direction, so we put together a port and that report is called “Prescription for Danger” it is available on our website and we have it out to the news media reaching out to get the information to those that need it. Our campaign is mainly information and there are other parts of the federal government that are working really hard to crack down on illegal internet pharmacies and drug trafficking of prescription drugs,.
Jill: Bringing that up, we actually had a guest last week, Paul, who was struggling with opiate addiction and actually got help through our addiction treatment but had a difficult time because the internet companies were not only emailing him about refills but were actually calling him to get him to refill the hydrocodone or percaset, and that to me, I am just trying to wrap my mind around that,,,How can a company be allowed to do that with a controlled substance?
LA: It is startling, there are aloit of rogue pharmacies that are not legitimate and all of the adults get this in our email boxes and so are the teenagers, so as long as they have the credit cards they can get their hands on anything they want through the internet.
Jill: Was there going to be an announcement by the President about this initiative. Well, the President’s office was excited and proud of the ads and glad to be doing something about the problem, unfortunately the Heath Ledger death coincided with the planned announcement so the president did not feel that it was appropriate. So we waited to launch the campaign and that was an amazing scenario last week also and I am glad that they decided not to do that because that might have been in bad taste but this message is so important and could help those people who are heading down the same path as Heath Ledger,
Brian: This is really touching the minds of our listening audience. Please call. 770-226-0920 or 1-888-920-2665. We are really taking a look at a way that the federal government is finally beginning to look at ways to advertise and educate the general public, you know Laura Ashley, tell us why the emphasis on youth and prescription drug addiction.
LA: for many years we have talked about the problem of marijuana it is the overwhelming drug but now the numbers are showing that more kids are trying prescription pain killers not for medical purpose every day than marijuana. So way more than cocaine, heroin, ecstasy all combined.
Jill: That is incredible, we are coming up on our first break, could you hold on and when we come back we will talk more about that first use phenomenon. If you want to get in on the conversation with questions or comments we will be right back.
Commercial Break
Brian: Welcome back to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, my name is Brian Fujii with Jill Mattingly my co-host and we are discussing a very interesting topic. The federal government helping with the problem of facing prescription drug addiction in our country.
Jill: I wanted to say Brian, people say, “Ok what about addiction treatment for teens?” Well at Breakthrough we actually treat adults, late adolescents and into adulthood and actually though most of my opiate clients that come in for opiate dependency are in their 20’s and when I go through their drug history I find that they started marijuana and oxycontin in high school and that is where the ball started rolling and then they got out from under their parents going to college and then became successful people and then they are looking for a handful of pills four or five times a day and or they have graduated into injecting heroin and that is why I believe it is so important it is starting in adolescence and I am seeing the result
Brian: We are looking at age 12 and up, this is kids getting out of elementary school.
Jill: Laura you were going to tell us how they are getting into the use. What do you understand to be the first use and why they do that.
LA: What you are seeing with your clientele is certainly the case, and unfortunately this starts in youth and if we want to be serious about stopping the disease of addiction in this country we have to look at the teen and if you don’t try any addictive substance before your 21st birthday, whether it is cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, anything, the chances of becoming addicted are very slim, but if you start using drugs in early adolescence, 13 – 15 years old, these kids are setting themselves up for a lifetime of addiction problems. Brian: Is that related to the way that the brain develops?LA: We are learning so much more about the brain every year. The brain does not stop developing until early to mid 20’s so when you introduce mind altering substances into an adolescent brain that is still developing that …
Jill: We actually treat that in our addiction treatment model, we really help them focus on how the brain changes are what we are working against
LA: It is a startling problem and some physical changes is also that if the teens start using the substances they are not going to develop the other coping skills that they need for life.
Jill: You were going to say something about the first use thought, are we seeing, or what age group are we seeing first off
LA: Well, now the prescription drugs are the choice among 12 and 13 year olds more so than marijuana, because these drugs are in their house where the marijuana is not. So they have access to it without needing a car or a job or money to go buy the pills cause they are there in the house or the grandmother’s house or the neighbor’s house for free.
Jill: Whatever happened to bikes and barbies at 12?
LA: Let’s keep them on the bikes
Jill: Why, what is the reason that they are interested in using that in the first place, is it peer pressure?
LA: I mean it is a complicated mix here I think that there is a natural curiosity and can be healthy in young people but when there is temptation right there at your fingertips, the curiosity or I am thinking I could feel funny or different, it is a large temptation for a 12 or 13 year old to resist and perhaps the friends are encouraging them that this is safer behavior than street drugs in their minds and this is a safe place to experiment and get high, that is just not the case.
Jill: Are there gender differences?
LA: Generally we are seeing that the girls don’t have as high of a substance addiction rate as men unfortunately with prescription drugs, the girls have caught up to or even passed boys with this behavior.
Jill: What is the payoff? Is there or is it because when I am automatically thinking of in that age group is it pms pain and then they tell themselves, “I need something,” and then the friend says, “My mom takes this for cramps,” and then
LA: Young girls are introduced to doctors and meds earlier than boys and they also unfortunately believe that they are helping each other out and that by sharing and giving pills to friends they are being kind and helping when really they can be seriously harming their friends.
Brian: You see this as a way of help and that is a very powerful point you bring up and many times it is exactly what happens when we receive phone calls, “My friend needed help,” and in some way there is that sense of innocence that believes it.
LA: And then the parents are guilty too. I mean thinking that they are helping their teen by giving one of their own medications when it hasn’t been prescribed to them by a doctor.
Brian: Excellent point.
LA: It is tricky because the truth is these are great medications and people need them to lead productive lives but they are prescribed for that person for that reason and taken exactly as prescribed. When they are shared the consequences can be horrible.
Jill: Let me give out our phone number again, 770-226-0920, we are talking to Laura Ashley Overdyke and she is speaking to us from Washington, D.C. and I hear you have four feet of snow?
LA: Not quite,
Jill: Not to make you feel bad it is 65 degrees here today. Please call in and join in on our conversation we have got a wonderful guest that can answer a lot of questions, so 770-226-0920 if you need more information about just the drugs and drug addiction treatment and what we do at breakthrough, you can look at www.breakthroughaddictionrecovery.com and get a lot of information and I think we have even linked to your office of National Drug Policy so that people can look and see what is going on there. I do want to continue asking how we are going to get the word to health providers, educators and those that can touch more families and loved ones. LA: Well medical professionals obviously have a huge impact on the public and on their patients and they can get the message out and we have started running ads in the Journal of American Medical and New England Journal of Medicine and other publications for health care providers that see teen patients and we want them to know that this addiction problem is going on and that they can talk to their patients and clients about it. The same goes for school teachers, counselors and nurses. We will be targeting their publications too. The kids take a pill at school and the teacher will never know due to the fact that there is no smell, not like alcohol or pot. This behavior can be alerted to by a student acting strangely without the smell of typical drugs you need to see if something else is going on.Brian: Well we are coming to our next break and we want our listeners to give us a call at 770-226-0920 or 1-888-920-2665,
This is a very fascinating discussion about our federal government helping the public understand the problems of teen use of prescription pain killers as well as over-the-counter medications. We will be back in a few minutes, stay with us.
Commercial Break
Jill: We have with us this hour, Laura Ashley Overdyke and we have been talking about teen prescription drug addiction and we talked about this in the last few shows and if you have been following this and I do want to say that at Breakthrough Addiction Recovery we use FDA approved medications such as suboxone to help with opiate addiction and I just want to be giving that information out during the show and if you are listening and have a loved one or yourself and are struggling with opiate dependency you can call us at our office, 770-743-8091 we do free consultations we sit down with professionals and really try to map out how to get you through the addiction and on and I hope that as you have been listening in this last half hour that you have enjoyed Laura Ashley talking abou this new initiative from the Whitehouse Officve of National Drug Control Policy and Laura Ashley you have generated a call from Jackson, Mississippi, so
LA: That is where I was born, so I am looking, forward,
Jill: All of your cousins are calling, this is Linda, she is asking us to ask you on the air the areas of the country that for this initiative and the research where did you get the students that were doing these polls
LA: The government has some ……..
Jill: It sounds like we have lost Laura Ashley, so we are going to head into some of our other questions that we have and Brian I am going to treat you like an expert real quick….looks like we are trying to get her back
First of all Laura Ashley was talking about the girls being first use and I think one of the things about that that scares me to death is because my niece three weeks here in this studio talking about being approached at her locker by someone with oxycontin in a pen, crushed up, and you know offering it to her for her aches and pains and migraines and things like that it is so scary. So I am really glad that we are doing this…..Laura Ashley?
LA: I am sorry, I just want to say that our surveys are truly national surveys those get information from young people all over the country in each of the 50 states and then for our specific media campaigns we want to make sure that all of the ads we are working on really resonate and speak to our target audience and we travel around the country and speak to young people and focus groups and parents to find out what is going on and we have been to Jackson, MS! So maybe our caller has been exposed to one of our focus groups there, we try to make it to rural communities and big cities to make sure that the messages are hitting their target audience.
Brian: It is very interesting you bring that up about cities and towns. Are you finding any particular type of area, such as we see this happening suburbia vs. rural areas or maybe in a more densely populated metro area.
LA: We definitely see teens abusing prescription drugs across the country, however, it is a bit more predominant with Caucasians and the suburbs, so more of a suburban white problem than an inner city problem.
Jill: In your years of research have you seen the differences in urban areas, are they more marijuana, or alcohol or
LA: Marijuana and alcohol are evenly spread across the country there are teens in every neighborhood and every socio economic group that use but the prescription drugs at the moment are still a little bit more of a suburban and Caucasian problem although some surveys show that Hispanics are catching up. African Americans have lower numbers.
Brian: Is this because you see in the suburban areas health care availability in contrast with other areas may not be available for …
LA: It makes sense, that if the people who are more affluent have a lot of access to health care and they will have more of these drugs in their house and the culture of these are perfectly safe and fine and mom and dad are leading them around the house. Teens just have this access to pills that are not for them.
Brian: It is almost a cultural thing, instant relief from everything, instant gratification, instant relief from pain and I see that as a phenomenon and I guess that is how they are viewing it. From the focus groups that the young people are looking at the way their parents are utilizing their medications and maybe feeling the best way to handle problems is taking drugs.
LA: Definitely these parents need to be good role models for their kids. If you need to take your prescription medicines then by all means do not feel guilty for doing so but make sure that you take it the way it is prescribed only for the reason it is prescribed and you are not sharing it with anyone else in the family and that you are clear with your teens what the rules are about this it is not ok to take someone else’s medication and it is not ok to take it to get high, and even if your teen has a prescription for an ADD medication it doesn’t mean that you can crush it and snort it on the weekends with your friends. That is not the intention.
Jill: Well with that good point, we are taking another break and come right back to continue our conversation. 770-226-0920. Call us and get in on the conversation.
Commercial Break
Jill: Welcome back we are talking to our guest, Laura Ashley Overdyke from the Office of National Drug Control Policy and she is really uh, lifted us up into the world of drug addiction. It is not just us Brian over the air in Atlanta, it is a new generation, it is federal level, doing what we did three weeks ago and they must have heard about us and jumped on it ….I am real excited about what you have been talking about and knowing that it is going the message is going to get out there that for the last four weeks Laura Ashley we have been saying two or three times on the air, parents, grandparents, go to your medicine cabinet right now, find the medications that we are talking about and put them in a safe place. I am so glad that someone else is taking the mantle and not that we actually had it but
LA: It is really inspiring that we have the ad tomorrow during the Super Bowl and when we took these ads to focus groups, the parents were so inspired and they got it,. The light went off and they said “Wait a minute, I have these at home and my kids at home! I need to get home!” It is not, if you don’t need the medicine anymore throw it away. If you do need it keep it under your control. Just as parents mark their liquor bottles to make sure that the teens don’t take any you need to know how many pills you have of medications that you need and keep a watchful eye on it and safeguard the medication to safeguard your teen.
Brian: What are some effective but also practical ways that parents can actually guard their medications. Are we supposed to get a safe or are there more practical ways a parent can monitor their own meds.
LA: I think for each family you have to figure out what is right for you. Certainly having them sitting out in the kitchen or the bathroom that has high traffic from the kids or their friends, that is not a good place for them. You need a place where you would know if there was tampering, pill counting doesn’t necessarily take that long and you would notice it if you needed a refill more often.
Jill: Right, and when we talk about this we are not saying it is your teen taking the meds, it could be the friends from school, kids that are just casually stopping by and use the bathroom during the time there, they look for this. Many know when someone is having surgery and look for ways to get into the household and get to the medications, “Didn’t your dad just have hip replacement?”
LA: You hear kids getting wisdom teeth removed or sports injury and the other kids find out and I think 1 in 14 have legitimate prescriptions have been approached by other teens offering to pay for the pills.
Jill: When you were doing the focus groups did you become aware of any stories that made you more passionate about this initiative?
LA: A courageous father who lost his son one week before High School graduation, a prescription drug overdose. The father said, “If I had found heroin in my kids pocket, I would have gotten him help immediately but if I found a pill it would not have generated the same response, I didn’t understand.” So when parents realize that teens are abusing these drugs that can definitely be fatal.
Brian: We have seen so many times people with meds and we think it is so easy and so natural to have and what we are trying to find out as parents are monitoring one of the things we have found out that not only from their children but we have people say that when they go to look at a house for sale, if they need it they go into the medicine cabinet to find what they need, strangers homes.
LA: This behavior really does start with social sources and the people are getting their drugs from friends and family but once addicted they get into some of the same behaviors that you would have if you were hooked on an illegal street drug.
Jill: Laura Ashley we had someone on last week that talked about all of those behaviors and said they in the back of their minds knew it wasn’t them so why am I doing this? We are actually coming to another break and I would love for anyone out there listening to call and ask a question or give a comment, if this has made you more aware, a teen a parent a teacher, please call and join . 770-226-0920 be right back.
Brian: Welcome back, my name is Brian Fujii with Jill Mattingly and our special guest from the office of the National Drug Control Policy, Laura Ashley Overdyke, we are talking about the new initiative that is being proposed by that office to talk about how we can inform our nation about the problems we are facing with teens using pain medications and also over the counter drugs. You know one of the things, what are some of the over the counter drugs that you are finding out our youth are using.
LA: Teens are using cough medicines to get high. The DXM is the main ingredient and take multiple bottles of let’s say Robitussin and drink them with the crowd and it is a nasty high and not too many repeat offenders. It can be dangerous.
Jill: DXM is found in many over the counter and mixing it with other substances it is a very intense high but you are right it is nasty and it does not feel good.
LA: Kids say they can’t get what they want they will take the DXM.
Jill: What are the goals set out for this initiative in this last segment so people can hear what is the whole crux of what you are going towards.
LA: overall we need parents to realize that not all of the drugs are coming from the street corner, prescription and over the counter drugs are in every house in this country and carry huge consequences, but the good news is they are in your house and therefore you can do something about it. So we want parents to safeguard prescriptions and get them under your control and out of the areas where they could be a temptation and you have also got to throw them away if you don’t need them anymore.
Jill: Not necessarily in the trash,
LA: Actually the new federal guidelines there are only a few to flush and those will tell you specifically on the package. For the most part we want them out of the water supply, so throw in the trash but be sneakier and make sure to not do it where others are aware.
Jill: Pour the cat litter on it?
LA: Ok
Jill: Other goals
LA: Be very clear that you disapprove of any drug use and that includes abusing prescription drugs. A lot of times parents feel like they don’t matter and they think that the kids are listening to celebrities and friends, but teens would be much less likely to use when the parents are not so tolerant.
Jill: You know you said about being a good role model and making sure that they are disposed of, but what about asking grandma to hide things too? A lot of times it is the grandparents.
LA: You may be doing everything right at your house and then your kids go to grandma’s house and you have to let her know that you want her to take her medicine but keep it in control when the kids are coming over, or don’t be afraid to talk to your friends parents about the same subject. We can be embarrassed to call the best friends of our teens, we need to set up communication with other parents and talk about this.
Jill: And so the ads tomorrow, Super Bowl Sunday are the big debut during the Super Bowl,
LA: Look for it near the end of the 2nd quarter and two more ads running for the next two months on television.
Jill: Well Laura Ashley Overdyke, you have been wonderful, thank you so much.
Brian: Appreciate you being on our show,.
Jill: We would love everyone out there who has listened to go to the website www.theantidrug.com
And our website www.breakthroughaddictionrecovery.com
We have so enjoyed your time with us and if there is anything else coming out from the federal government we would love to have you back again.
Thank you for listening, bye Brian
Brian: Take Care, watch the Super Bowl.
