Photo by Bulletin graphics

Courtesy Photo/Image

Courtesy Photo/Image

Courtesy Photo/Image This Leadership Lincoln County group is fighting back: Front, from left: Connie Cook, Wendy Thompson and Wanda Cooper. Back row: Bob Lantis, Sandy Ross and Patrick O'Neil.

“Taking prescription drugs makes you feel ‘chill’”, a teenager recently told the Bulletin, “and nothing worries you.”

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Many people ages 11 to 18 routinely take pills such as Vicodin, Percocet, Xanax, Klonopin, Adderal, Concerta, Ritalin or generic knockoffs of the same.

The illegal use of prescription drugs looms larger than problem drinking or marijuana use, North Platte High School Principal Jim Whitney said.

The drugs are stolen from medicine cabinets, parents’ or grandparents’ medicine cabinets, or from a friend’s house, or even bought off the Internet.

Drugs are passed to friends, either for free or for money. Some pills are reportedly taken by the handful at so-called “pharma parties” where pills are reportedly dumped in a bowl for anyone and everyone, and chased down with beers.

“You are just messed up,” a student said of the effects. “You don’t even want to move. You just want to lay there and stare off into space.”

“Prescription drug abuse has been around in different forms for a long time,” Whitney said, “but in the last year and a half it has probably become more popular than alcohol.”

In a 2007 Lincoln County survey, 12-14 percent of high school students said they had abused prescription drugs. The same survey found more than 3 percent of sixth graders abused the drugs, and more than 5 percent of eighth graders.

The number who get caught is much lower. Only 12 students have been caught with illegal prescription drugs this year at the high school, Whitney said. Nearly all of them were suspended.

Kids steal drugs not just to chill, but to sell. Many pills bring from $2-5 each. Oxycontin can bring $40 each, according to a high school user who asked to remain anonymous.

“Have you ever attended a pharma or pill party?” we asked the student.

“I wouldn’t call them pill parties,” she said, “but at pretty much any party there’s someone who has pills, or is on pills. Recently a couple people had some Adderal and we were snorting it. Adderal is popular because it makes it so you can drink more and you can stay up all night long.”

Adderal is an amphetamine usually prescribed to treat attention deficit hyperactivity.

Taking the call

The growing problem prompted a group of North Platte residents to fight back. Listeners are hearing hundreds of radio announcements on virtually every North Platte radio station, alerting the public to the problem.

The group has distributed thousands of pamphlets, bundles of posters and dozens of banners.

They have set a day -- April 25 -- aside to collect prescription drugs, including syringes and over-the-counter drugs. They will set up a drive-up drop point at the high school.

The drugs will ultimately be incinerated.

They have lined up a team of powerful speakers who will talk about the danger, the self-destruction that comes with drug abuse.

The group of residents joined together during the Leadership Lincoln County program, wherein 20 people spend a year learning about major businesses and public services so they can get good things done.

In one part of the leadership program, the 20 split into groups of 5-6 people. Each group was challenged to develop a public project that will continue into the future.

The group – Wendy Thompson, Wanda Cooper, Sandy Ross, Bob Lantis, Patrick O’Neil and Connie Cook — kicked around ideas. After a visit with law enforcement officials they agreed to tackle the prescription drug problem at the urging of Capt. Jim Parish of the Nebraska State Patrol.

“The more we learned, the more we got involved,” said Cook, a driving force in the project. “The information was riveting — and motivating. We learned about some kids at high school who got in trouble. Their parents were completely shocked. We were shocked. We had no idea.”

“Now, we’re passionate to do something constructive,” Cook said. “It’s amazing; every day we learn more and more.”

“Have you taken other drugs?” the Bulletin asked another student.

“Yeah. I smoke weed like every day and used ecstasy once and I dabbled in coke for a couple months last year and still do it every once in awhile,” he said.

“I tried meth twice, but it made me crazy. I don’t want to ever do very much of it; it’s bad stuff. I’ve done mushrooms a couple times too, and of course alcohol is a drug too.”

“I’m out of my alcoholic phase but I still drink on the weekends,” he said. “I won’t buy any drug except weed or alcohol but if someone’s offering, I’ll do pretty much anything. I’ll never do heroin though, but I want to try acid in a few years just to see what it’s like.”

“Do a lot of your friends take pills?”

“Yeah, pretty much all of them. I have five friends that always have them. They take them pretty much every day.”

“What do they think of it?”

“It’s not considered a bad thing to do. Pills are the equivalent of smoking weed for people who can’t smoke because they are on probation or just don’t like pot. Like, the preppy kids do it because their parents would know if they smoked pot because they’d smell it. But most parents have no idea that their kids are getting messed up on pills.”

Leadership is learning

The leadership group recently dropped posters and flyers at all of Lincoln County’s schools, plus Stapleton.

At North Platte’s middle schools, they asked the principals if they have caught kids using prescription drugs.

“They told us, ‘As far as catching them, no, we’ve not caught them yet, but we know there are kids here who are stealing drugs so they can sell them to other kids,’” Cook said.

“We want this information out to the public,” she said. “We know there is a need to educate those who are all the way from 101 years old to 10 years old. They need to know it’s happening and how bad it is for kids, and the environment.”

Cook said kids don’t understand the dangers.

“What do you take the most?” we asked a North Platte high school student.

“I started out taking Xanax because I got as many as I wanted, for free. Then I had some Percocet. I loved those but they’re too addictive to take for a long time. Most people take pain pills (Vicodin/Percocet), anxiety pills (Xanax/Klonopin), or attention deficit disorder pills (Adderal/Concerta/Ritalin).”

“How much would a kid spend on drugs in an average week?”

“People always gave them to me for free, but the average pill popper could probably spend $50-100 a week. The preppies can spend a lot from their lunch-gas-pocket money.”

Harm to creatures large and small

Even when the drugs are thrown away, they are usually flushed down the toilet.

Even when drugs are taken properly, traces enter the waste stream that eventually empties into nature, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA is becoming more concerned. A study in Boulder, Colo. found female sucker fish outnumber males 5 to 1, and 50 percent of the males have female sex indicators, apparently from estrogen traces from pills for women.

Near Dallas, tiny amounts of Prozac have been found in the livers and brain cells of channel catfish and crappie.

Lots of help

As part of the leadership project, Cook addressed the Lincoln County noon Rotary in mid-March. She cited national reports that the use of Oxycontin increased by 30 percent in one year – 2007 — among high school seniors. And she said one out of 10 high school seniors that year used Vicodin illegally.

Eighty-one percent of teens who abuse prescription or over-the-counter drugs combine them with alcohol, the national study said.

Hospital emergency room visits involving such drugs increased 21 percent in 2008. Nearly half of those visits were from patients 12 to 20 years old.

The number of teens going into drug treatment has increased 300 percent in the last 10 years.

As Cook painted the alarming picture of abuse and incapacitation, community members offered to help. So far, 24 individuals and businesses have stepped up to sponsor the local education and collection effort.

“The support is overwhelming,” Cook said.

“We heard you got into serious medical trouble once from taking too many drugs. Why didn’t that stop you from taking more?” we asked a student.

“Well, I know I won’t ever take that many again, and it did stop me for the most part. I was getting messed up every day. After that I didn’t touch a pill for months. I switched to coke for a couple months, then pot when the person that always gave me coke got sent to rehab.”

Featured speaker – former abuser

Former Husker football All-American Jason Peter will speak to the public at the end of the drug collection day, April 25.

Peter, one of the nation's best defensive linemen in 1997, graduated from Nebraska and went to the NFL, where he earned $6.5 million from the Carolina Panthers. But he blew most of the money on illegal drugs, taking up to 80 pain killers a day.

Jason Peter’s life finally crashed. A series of injuries took him off the NFL roster.

He managed to clean up and wrote a book, “Hero of the Underground” and now hosts an ESPN talk show from his hometown of Lincoln. He spends his spare time traveling, talking about the dangers of drug abuse.

”Prescription drugs are a lot more addictive than people realize,” another North Platte student told the Bulletin.

“You can get into big-time trouble,” he said. “Possession of a controlled substance is a felony. They can even charge you for each pill in your possession. If they think you’re selling them you get possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, which is prison time.”

National obsession

“Our national pastime — self-destruction,” writer Jerry Stahl said in a review of Jason Peter’s book.

“We are a nation obsessed with pharmaceuticals,” Cook said as she addressed the Rotary. “We spend vast sums to manage our health, and we pop pills to address every conceivable symptom. In this nation, we abuse prescription drugs… daily.”

Persons 65 and older take one-third of all prescribed medications even though they comprise 13 percent of the population, Cook said. Older patients are more likely to have multiple prescriptions, which can lead to unintentional misuse, more drugs stored in medicine cabinets for kids to steal.

The leadership group advises to keep medicine containers closed, even locked. Keep a record of prescriptions and the amount on hand. Reinforce a message of caution and restraint to your children. Start early, long before adolescence. Build a solid foundation for resisting temptations and outside influences.

The language of pharming

Big boys, cotton, kicker – Various slang for prescription pain relievers.

Chill pills, french fries, tranqs – a Various slang for prescription sedatives and tranquilizers.

Pharming (pronounced “farming”) – From the word pharmaceutical. It means kids getting high by raiding their parents’ medicine cabinets for prescription drugs.

Pharm parties – Parties where teens bring prescription drugs from home, mix them together into a big bowl (see ‘trail mix’), and grab a handful. Not surprisingly, pharm parties are usually arranged while parents are out.

Pilz (pronounced pills) – A popular term used to describe prescription medications. Can also include over-the-counter medications.

Recipe – Prescription drugs mixed with alcoholic or other beverages.

Trail mix – A mixture of various prescription drugs, usually served in a big bag or bowl at pharm parties.

North Platte therapist: Most clients abuse prescriptions

Young people steal grandma’s pills and distribute them at school. Senior citizens falsify prescriptions for more pain medication. Babysitters take pills from cabinets.

An Ohio real estate agent lost her license for pilfering pills from bathrooms at open houses.

The appeal is obvious --the drugs can be legally obtained, the stigma of going to a street pusher can be avoided, and the price isn’t steep.

There are an estimated 800,000 web sites which sell prescription drugs on the Internet and will ship them to households no questions asked.

Today, about one-third of all U.S. drug abuse is prescription drug abuse.

Approximately 1.9 million persons age 12 or older have used OxyContin (pain reliever, like morphine) non-medically at least once in their lifetime, according to Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

Vicki Dugger, a therapist with New Beginnings Therapy Associates in North Platte, said about 75 percent of the patients she treats admitted abusing prescription drugs.

Dugger said many more people are aware of it today than in the 1980s and 1990s. Still, much more awareness is needed.

“There’s a misconception that abusing prescription medication is not harmful,” Dugger said. “The fact is, it can have deadly results.”

Dugger said. kids have died after attending pharming parties. She has some tips for parents to help keep their teenagers safe:

• Consider your own drug behavior and the message you are sending.

• Do a drug inventory. Forgotten or expired prescriptions or leftover over-the-counter meds could be appealing to kids, so get rid of them. Put new drugs away.

• Reach out and have a discussion. Dugger said research showed that kids who learn a lot about drug risks from their parents are up to half a likely to use drugs as kids who haven’t had that conversation from mom and dad.

• Look on the computer. Try conducting your own web search to see how easily one can buy prescription meds without a prescription.

• Watch for warning signs. These may include unexplained disappearance of meds from medicine cabinets, declining grades, loss of interest in activities, changes in friends and behaviors, disrupted sleeping or eating patterns and more.

Dugger said she recently had a mother of a teen ask her about all the Musinex boxes around her house.

Musinex is a medication is used for temporary relief of coughs caused by certain respiratory tract infections but teens have been known to abuse it by taking more than the recommended amounts to get high.

Dugger said she advised the mother to have a conversation with her teen immediately.

By Frank L. Graham

The entire Bulletin staff contributed to this report. It was first published April 1 in the Bulletin print edition.