More than a third of young adults misuse their psychoactive drugs, a new study has found.
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Psychoactive drugs, such as opioids and stimulants, have been misused by more than 34% of young adults and more than 20% of young people, according to a new study.
About 34% of adults aged 18 to 25 have misused their psychoactive drugs, defined as opioids, stimulants, tranquilizers and sedatives, according to a study published Tuesday in the British Medical Journal.
Misuse of the drug was defined as taking a prescription in larger quantities than prescribed, more often than prescribed, for longer than prescribed or in any way not specified by your doctor. Someone taking a drug that was not prescribed was also considered to be misuse.
Misuse of psychoactive drugs can lead to overdoses, drug addiction and, in severe cases, death, said the study’s lead author, Israel Agaku, professor in the department of oral health policy and epidemiology at Harvard School of Dental Medicine.
The researchers collected data from U.S. youth and young adult surveys conducted between 2015 and 2018.
More than 20% of young people aged 12 to 17 who took psychoactive medications were also misusing these drugs. The greater number of young people who use drugs compared to young people can be attributed to the lack of parental supervision, said Agaku.
Adults can obtain these prescription drugs from their colleagues, he said, “which could be facilitated in social circles where there is some measure of social acceptability.” This may include performance-enhancing stimulants called “study drugs,” said Agaku.
Various prescriptions increase the chance of misuse
Taking various psychoactive drugs greatly increased the likelihood of misuse, the researchers found.
More than 60% of adults who took various psychoactive drugs reported the misuse of at least one of their prescriptions. For young people aged 12 to 17, the figure was over 46%.
People can become addicted to drugs and need more to feel “tall,” said Agaku. He also believes that there may be a social component, in which people who use these drugs “receive more social and environmental cues to engage in such behavior”.
Opioid use was the highest for both young adults and young people, with 30% of adults using psychoactive drugs taking opioids and 19% for young people.
However, stimulants and tranquilizers were, by far, the most misused drugs. More than 40% of young people who took tranquilizers reported using them inappropriately, and more than 51% of adults who took stimulants said they used them badly.
The misuse of stimulants may have been high among young adults because they “may be getting them from their health care providers intentionally for non-medical purposes,” said Agaku in an email. Stimulants also have less stigma among young adults on environments like college campuses, he said.
Steps forward
For psychoactive drugs like opioids, there should be less supply of them to the public, said Dr. Andrew Saxon, a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the study.
Starting in the 1990s, “the message that doctors were getting was: if you are a compassionate and caring doctor and your patient is in pain, you will be prescribing opioids because it is not dangerous to do that,” said Saxon.
That was true for some patients, he said, but opioids did more harm than good for others. The doctors recommended by Saxon examine other forms of treatment for his patients, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy or CBT.
To decrease the misuse of psychoactive drugs, Agaku recommended behavioral counseling as an alternative before prescribing medications. For young people in particular, he asked parents to take responsibility for their own medicines to keep them out of the reach of their children.
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