WASHINGTON — A growing number of teenagers say it’s easier to illegally obtain prescription drugs than to buy beer, according to a survey to be published today.
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University asked: “Which is easiest for someone your age to buy: cigarettes, beer, marijuana, or prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Percocet, Vicodin or Ritalin, without a prescription?”
Nineteen percent of teenagers found it easier to purchase prescription drugs than cigarettes, beer or marijuana, compared with 13 percent a year ago. A quarter of the teens said it is easiest to buy marijuana, with 43 percent of 17-year-olds saying they could buy the drug in less than an hour.
The study also found that a large group of parents do not know where their children are in the evening and identified a group of “problem parents” whose actions increased the abuse of illegal and prescription drugs among 12- to-17-year-olds.
Joseph Califano, chairman and president of the center, said there are basic steps parents could take to avoid being “passive pushers.” The statistics showed that 34 percent of teenagers abusing prescription drugs, such as OxyContin and Vicodin, obtained them at home or from their parents.
“Fifty years ago, people would lock up the liquor,” he said in a telephone interview. “Maybe there should be a lock on the medicine cabinet now.”
Elizabeth Planet, who coordinated the study of 1,002 12- to 17 year-olds from April to June, highlighted the difference in behavior cited by parents and kids.
The correlation between allowing teens out late on school nights and the likelihood that people in their presence would be smoking and drinking was dramatic. Half of all teens allowed out after 10 p.m. said they spent time with people smoking and using drugs, while 29 percent of those who returned home between 8 and 10 p.m. reported the same behavior.
