National survey shows little change in overall adolescent drug use and slight increase in prescription sedatives and painkillers.

The results from the 2005 Monitoring the Future survey were released last week by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the University of Michigan.  Overall statistics show a very slight decline in illicit drug use among teens, but the use of prescription drugs such as sedatives and the narcotic painkiller Oxycontin have continued to increase.

In the survey category of narcotics other than heroin, the use of such substances as prescription painkillers steadily increased from 1992 to 2002 and there has been little change since then.  In a release from the University of Michigan, one of the authors and lead researchers of the study, Lloyd Johnston said, "That makes this one of the few classes of drugs in which we have not seen improvement, after a substantial rise in use."

Oxycontin is a name brand painkiller in the oxycodone category.  Due to it's powerfully addictive qualities, the drug has been a major threat in the United States over the last several years and, despite being a controlled substance, has etched its way into the black market drug scene ever since.  The past-year use of Oxycontin has risen from 4 percent of 12th-graders in 2002 to 5.5 percent in 2005, which is an increase of 40 percent.

As one of the largest and most effective drug education and rehabilitation programs in the nation, Narconon Arrowhead has worked with young and old alike from around the country to combat the use of drugs.  As a drug-free rehabilitation program, they recognize that prescription drugs have become a major source of the drug problem in the United States and caution people to remember that all drugs are essentially poisons.