“Maybe I’ll just have one more.”

This is how a prescription pill addiction begins. Unlike other drugs, the biggest danger that comes with prescription pills is that addiction and abuse can start without the person even realizing they are taking a drug and that drug can have detrimental effects on their body when taken in excess. Often, people do not realize the issue with taking just one more pill. In reality, that one extra pill can lead people down the slippery slope that is a prescription pill addiction.

After marijuana and alcohol, prescription drugs are the most commonly abused drugs among high schoolers. According to the NIDA’s Monitoring the Future study (The National Institute of Drug Abuse) , 19.9% of American teenagers have abused prescription drugs at least once in their lifetime. Prescription pill abuse however has been on the rise over the last decade. Commonly abused drugs include Adderall, Ritocin and Vicodin. For some teens, these drugs are procured illegally. For others however, these drugs were already prescribed to them and the abuse begins with not following the directions properly. Another common way high schoolers are getting prescription pills is from other family members’ medicine in their own home.

“When it says a pill a day, people might take that and then they think something hurts so maybe they should take two,” senior Artea Muharemi said.”[Addiction] starts like this and it builds up, and they do not know that one more pill will hurt them physically and mentally. By the time they are done with the pills, they want more, because they are addicted to that one.”

Not only do teenagers who abuse drugs risk health complications, but there are also severe legal consequences that come with abuse.

“You cannot have in your possession anyone else’s prescription but yours, even if you are carrying a friend’s or a family member’s,” Troy police officer Janice Pokely said. “You cannot have your own medication in like a Ziploc bag, it has to be in its own prescribed container. These are all crimes that you can be charged with. When we find prescription medicine, we do charge the people.”

These charges require the person in question to go to court, where he or she would also be fined. Depending on the severity of the charges and how extensive their criminal records are, teenagers could potentially end up in jail.

One of the main issues that comes with abusing prescription pills and other drugs in general are the psychological effects on one’s brain. For example, Xanax, a drug primarily prescribed for battling anxiety, is an agonist for GABA, a chemical messenger or a neurotransmitter. This means that it essentially stimulates the production of the neurotransmitter GABA, which increases sleepiness and decreases movement. After ingestion, a person might feel really good under the influence of Xanax; yet if taken improperly the drug can actually result in shutting down the production of GABA, the substance that actually makes the person feel good. This leads to both a psychological and biological dependence on the drug because their body can no longer make what was supposed to calm them down naturally.

“These are good kids that are getting sucked into something really bad because they do not think that prescription drugs are that bad,” psychology teacher Kelly Forshey said. “But these drugs can lead to them becoming addicted and then getting hooked on other drugs like heroin. What people do not realize sometimes is that prescription drugs can be just as dangerous.”