10:50 PM PDT on Wednesday, May 17, 2006

By LINDA BYRON / KING 5 News

While parents worry about their kids trying illegal drugs, the real threat may be in their own medicine cabinets.

KING

Studies show more and more teens are abusing prescription painkillers, like OxyContin.

In Western Washington, OxyContin use is far more serious than many parents, school districts and even some police realize.

Teens believe OxyContin is safe because it comes out of a prescription bottle. 

The teens interviewed for this story come from affluent communities and good schools. They asked not to be identified, but said they were athletes and good students until they got addicted to OxyContin.

OxyContin, a slow-release narcotic intended to help people with debilitating pain. But it has become the drug of choice for many teens who don't have a clue what they're getting into.

"This is no little pill that's for games. This stuff will hook you and keep you hooked," said Dr. Bill Dickinson, medical director for Providence Behavioral Health Services in Everett.

Dr. David Scratchley has treated scores of teenages battling addiction to OxyContin and other drugs.

"I have three boys. If one came home with an OxyContin addiction, I would be just as alarmed as if they came home saying they'd been smoking or shooting heroin," Scratchley said.

Seventeen-year-old "Brett" has already been through rehab twice to kick his OxyContin habit.

He got hooked when he was a sophomore in the Lake Washington School District.

"I'd wake up in the mornings, and bust it up, snort it in my bathroom, then go to school."

Brett says he did the drug everywhere, "Parking lots, school bathrooms, my bathroom, absolutely anywhere."

He believed OxyContin was safe because it's a prescription drug.  

He didn't realize that taking one 80 milligram OxyContin pill is like taking 16 Percocet.

Brett's habit escalated to three 80 mg. tablets a day, the equivalent of 48 regular pain pills.

"It has such a high tolerance that you need to do more and more to get high," he said.

Financing that habit cost him $200 a day and led Brett to stealing.

"I sold clothes, my guitar, my snowboard, my stereo, my brother's  iPod, my brother's video games, my brother's stuff, my family's jewelry. I'd go rob other people and steal their stuff too," he said.

His story isn't unique

"The fastest growing segment of the population that's using opiates … is teens.  That's the fastest growing segment for abuse," Dickinson said.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports OxyContin use by 12th graders is up 40 percent in just three years.

Another study found one out of every 10 teenagers admits to abusing OxyContin.

These statistics don't surprise high school students in the Lake Washington School District interviewed for this story.

At Redmond High School, several students said that getting the drug at school would not likely be very hard.

Asked if he'd seen any, RHS student Johnny Bloxham said, "All the time. I see people do it after school, in the back yard."

But the KING 5 Investigators found a disconnect: Teens are seeing more and more OxyContin  Treatment centers from Seattle to Yakima jammed with adolescents trying to kick the habit, while school districts are saying OxyContin use is falling. 

"We think the amount of it and the numbers of students involved has declined over the past couple of years," said Lake Washington School District Assistant Superintendent Cindy Meilleur.

Police assigned to schools from Everett to  Bothell, Bellevue, Kirkland and Redmond all said OxyContin isn't a problem.

But  drug and alcohol counselors working in some of those same schools disagree.   

"They may not be seeing it, but it's there," said Tena Youngberg, of Youth Eastside Services.

And Scratchley said thinking OxyContin isn't a problem is naïve.

"I think it's terribly naive.  I think what we're seeing is we don't have a good mechanism to pick up and detect the drug is present."

And there's a reason why it is so popular, according to Doreen O'Connor-Nash, an intervention specialist with the Mukilteo School District

"It's popular because it's available, but it's also popular because it so easily goes undetected. They can get away with it," she said.

They can get away with because  it's hard to detect.  It doesn't smell like pot or cause obvious signs of impairment like methamphetamine.

Yet experts say OxyContin is basically the equivalent of synthetic heroin. As a painkiller, it's supposed to be slowly released over time.  But kids crush it to get a mega dose of opiate all at once.

Kids are often able to get their hands on OxyContin for the first time out of their parent’s or a friend’s medicine cabinet. The problem may be compounded because, many experts believe, the drug is being over-prescribed for adults.

Parents are advised to lock up OxyContin if they have, throw away any they don’t need and when talking to kids about drugs, don’t forget to include prescription drugs.