Town hall meeting covers risks of teen Rx drug abuse MCC, one of 10 in nation to get grant, holds meeting BY TOM CAIAZZA Staff Writer Nearly one in five teens admitted to abusing prescription drugs in 2005 - more than any other illegal drug except one. According to a report published by the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) studying the rising trend in teen prescription drug abuse in the United States, abuse of prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs among teens has risen to the second-most abused illegal substance next to marijuana. While overall teen drug abuse has gone down, teens have access to prescription drugs in quantities they may not have for other drugs. The most common place for teens to acquire these drugs is their parents' medicine cabinet. Middlesex County residents and officials joined the discourse surrounding the growing drug problem on Aug. 15 during a unique town hall meeting and panel discussion moderated by state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-18). Buono led a panel of industry experts and psychology professionals to discuss the increase in abuse of these narcotics and ways to fight the trend. Middlesex County College, Edison, was chosen by the ONDCP as one of 10 groups in the country to hold the forum and received a grant to conduct the evening's presentations and compile a report of the panel's findings to be disseminated to all the public members who participated. Buono said that the nation has been fighting the "war on drugs" for decades, and in many ways they are winning that war. However, prescription and OTC drug abuse is one front where she feels there is little movement. "One area where there is no dispute we are losing ground," Buono said, "is the rapid escalation of over-the-counter and prescription drugs." The battle against prescription drug use is not being fought on the streets, where drugs such as Ecstasy, heroin and cocaine are most prevalent. It is being fought in the medicine cabinets of average American homes, where prescription drugs are readily available. "So many of us as parents are not aware of the gravity, extent and enormity of the problem," Buono said. "It's a grim harbinger of what the future holds for us if we don't act now." The panel was made up of five community experts including Jonathon Krecji, director of training and research at Princeton House Behavioral Health, George Rusoloj, a retail pharmacist based in Edison, and Linda Surks, who has worked for the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD). Surks' son, Jason Surks, a 19-year-old college student, died from an overdose of prescription drugs and is the impetus for Jason's Law, which raises awareness of prescription drug abuse. Surks said that before her son's death, prescription drug abuse was "below the radar screen." She said her son, who had all of the education a person working in the field could provide for their child, was still a victim of the availability of prescription drugs on the Internet. "My son died at 19 in an overdose and ordered the drugs on the Internet from a Mexican pharmacy," Surks said. Rusoloj said that pharmacists are taking steps to curb the spread of prescription drug abuse, including verifying prescriptions before they are filled and using common-sense indicators to spot possible drug abusers. However, OTC medications, which can be just as dangerous when overused or combined with other products such as gasoline, are barely regulated and almost impossible to keep track of. Aside from the recent limitations placed on the purchase of large amounts of pseudoephedrine based products, there is little or no legal means for pharmacists to keep people from buying most of them. "Other than that, there is free rein," Rusoloj said. One Monroe Township woman who wished to only use her first name, Kathy, said that her son has been addicted to prescription drugs for the better part of five years. Despite counseling, educating and other types of intervention, Kathy said the habit still persists and it has since turned into a heroin habit. Kathy said that the availability of the prescription drugs from negligent parents of her son's friends led directly to his addiction. "We are definitely destroying the fabric of our society and it is pervasive in the town I live in," Kathy said. Harris Stratyner, a panel member and clinical director of Addiction Recovery Services, said that society's desire for the quick fix has created an overly medicated citizenry and called the current generation "the microwave generation." Krecji said the culture needs to change the attitude toward prescription drugs and redefine how we use medicine. One audience member asked the senator what, if any, legislation was in the State House to combat the problem. Buono said there was a bill that would require New Jersey to join a registry of pharmacists and doctors that keeps track of medicines prescribed and filled in order to find patterns of abuse more quickly and easily. As it stands, one can shop a prescription around town until they can find a pharmacist willing to, or inattentive enough, to fill it. Buono said that bill has been slowgoing for some time in the Legislature. However, the panel found some solutions that parents can use to keep their children safe, including greater involvement in their lives and more vigilance over the type of medications they keep in their medicine cabinets.