When odd reports started flooding the Mason police department regarding increasing numbers of small-scale thefts, Chief of Police John Stressman was appalled. Having served as a member of numerous specialized units, as a drug investigator, and as a 20-year member of the Jackson Police Department, Stressman thought he had seen it all. Apparently not, since the majority of these thefts had occurred in a surprising location associated with bingo nights and grandchildren visits: the senior center---specifically the medicine cabinet. While digging through investigations on the unusual thefts in the rural community of Mason, Stressman felt his shovel hit the gold nugget and the fog lifted to reveal three words: prescription drug abuse.
       

“Specifically, what I noticed was a shocking number of teenagers who were overdosing on prescription drugs. This finding was very surprising coming from a conservative school like Mason High,” Stressman said, his face creased with an uncountable number of stress lines below his wire rimmed glasses, each line perhaps signifying each police case he had undertaken over the years.
       

Unfortunately, prescription drug abuse--when one takes medicine that is prescribed for someone else or takes his or her own prescription of an opioid, stimulant, or depressant in a way not intended by a doctor ---has not been just confined to the Mason High School (Stressman).
     

Prescription drugs are the most commonly abused substances after marijuana and alcohol for Michigan teenagers aged 14 and older. According to Linda S. Vail, the Ingham County Health Officer, prescription drug deaths have increased by 100 percent in the last ten years and every day in the U.S., 2,500 youth, ages 12 to 17, abuse a prescription pain reliever for the first time (Vail).
     

“The pattern of drug abuse is cyclical. In the 1960s, many people were dying from drug overdoses--Marilyn Monroe and Jannis Joplin being the more famous examples--so that era of drug overdose made awareness popular, but children these days have a generational amnesia, not having experienced a time like the 1960s,” Elizabeth Hertel, the director of Policy and Legislation for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, said (Hertel).
     

Another reason prescription drugs trump other drugs in use is convenience: these pills are within peoples’ homes, as well as those of their friends, relatives, and as Stressman stresses, senior citizens. The hotspot to acquire such drugs is not urban street corners, where the majority of drug abusers acquire heroin and marijuana Sixty to seventy percent of teen prescription drug abusers say that home medicine cabinets are their source of drugs (Stressman). Vail also skillfully points out that Michigan is a state with high prescribing physicians, leading to a surplus of pills that can be abused. Fifty percent of teens are also disillusioned because they believe that prescription drugs are much safer than illegal street drugs. These factors explain why drug poisoning was the biggest cause of accidental death in 2009 in the state of Michigan (Vail).
     

“Just because a drug is prescribed by a doctor does not mean it is safe,” Hertel said. “Prescription drugs are only safe for the individuals who actually have the prescriptions for them and for certainly no one else.” (Hertel)
       

Many teens also view prescription drug abuse as a recreational activity due to the angle their society takes on the issue.
     

“What I see is that the entertainment industry lives on a totally separate plateau from the rest of us, and it is trying to pass the idea that prescription drug abuse is socially acceptable to us as shown through the movie ‘Project X’ and the like,” Stressman said. “The entertainment industry is making a joke out of the prescription drug abuse epidemic.” (Stressman)
     

For these reasons and many more, national studies show that a teen is more likely to have abused a prescription drug than an illegal street drug. According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, prescription drugs are not any safer than any other type of drug. Teens who abuse prescription drugs are twice as likely to use alcohol, five times more likely to use marijuana, and twelve to twenty two times more likely to use illegal street drugs such as heroin, ecstasy and cocaine than teens who do not abuse prescription drugs. Abusing opioids like oxycodone and codeine can also cause one to feel sleepy, sick to his or her stomach, and constipated. At higher doses, opioids can make it hard to breathe properly and can cause overdose and death ("Drug Facts: Prescription Drugs”).

Abusing any type of drug that causes changes in your mood, perceptions and behavior can affect judgment and willingness to take risks—putting one at greater risk for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Prescription drugs can increase risk for health problems when combined with other prescription medications, over-the-counter medicines, illicit drugs or alcohol. For example, combining opioids (painkillers) with alcohol can make breathing problems worse and can lead to death ("Prescription Drugs & Cold Medicines”).
     

Michigan may seem to be embedded in the vicious cycle of prescription drug abuse and overdose, but there is still hope in the dark, warm eyes of 24-year-old Aaron Emerson, a previous opiate and heroin drug abuser turned certified recovery coach. His drug abuse started at the tender age of sixteen, when many of the sophomores and juniors in his school were getting addicted to heroin and prescription drugs. His addiction got to the point that he was arrested and sent to the Ingham County Jail.
   

 “When I was in my addiction, I knew that what I was doing was wrong for myself and others.  It was the cravings, a definite disease that eats at you. I had to use the drugs just to make me not want to puke,” Emerson said with his mind deep in the morbid memories of his past. “A year in jail was a big dip in my life. Seeing what I was doing to my family, staying in a homeless shelter, feeling the horrors of addiction and experiencing the deaths of friends who were drug abusers motivated me to turn my life around.”
     

After he turned his own life around, Emerson realized his purpose in life was to inspire a positive change in other drug abusers. To help stop the epidemic of prescription drug abuse, Emerson constantly speaks to the public and advises to keep an eye out for friends and family who experience change: long periods in the bathroom, bloodshot eyes, dilated pupils and a withdrawal from social activities. To help a prescription drug abuser recover, he thinks drug abuser has to admit he or she has a problem most importantly. Lastly, he advises that the drug abuser to be aided by friends and family as a form of therapy through support and love.
   

 “Even a year in jail did not cure me altogether-- I still had to deal with cravings and urges when they popped up,” a soft-spoken Emerson said quietly, but impactfully. “The support of my family and friends was what got me through recovery.” (Emerson)
     

Not only are there ways to pull a drug abuser out of his or her addiction, but there are also ways to prevent the abuse in the first place. Carefully following the doctor’s instructions for taking a medication makes it less likely that one will develop dependence or addiction, because the medication is prescribed in amounts and forms that are considered appropriate for that person ("Prescription Drugs & Cold Medicines"). Regarding the pills already in supply in people’s cabinets, Stressman has devised a program in the Mason community to get rid of the dangerous surplus: prescription drug incineration.
   

“In just one day, I incinerated 300 pounds--it was a large scale program and a lot of work, but it was for the sake of the community,” Stressman said.

Stressman also emphasizes the fact that while in their addiction, abusers rarely think clearly or listen to reason. Therefore, Stressman has taken a different route with dealing with this health crisis by directly communicating with the rest of the public, whether that be friends, peers or media through a public service announcement or letter add (he has done both in the past).
     

“The problem with dealing with abusers is that they do not want to listen to reason--abusers are dependent on the drugs to get them through every day,” Stressman said. “The most important way to combat prescription drug abuse is not just to get the message about the harmful effects of drug abuse to the abusers themselves, but to family, friends, and teachers--people who will listen and help prevent the spread of this epidemic from spreading to other teenagers.” (Stressman)
     

Not only is the public taking action, the government is starting to see addicts in a new way.
       

“Drug treatment courts are becoming prominent, and many times the judge is willing to put prescription drug abusers in recovery as a mild form of prosecution,” Vail said (Vail).

Hertel has gone so far as to request the governor of Michigan to make prescription drug abuse a priority in the State of the State address, which he willingly did after being exposed to the whopping statistics regarding the prescription drug abuse epidemic. Hertel has also been a prominent in getting the state to adopt guidelines for prescriptions and creating MAPS (Michigan Automated Prescription System), a volunteer program that physicians can enter information into and find out who and what is being prescribed to their patients.
     

“At this point in time, we live in a world where resources are limited, so we have less money funneled into preventive methods as compared to dire issues,” Hertel said. “Honestly, jails do not have a lot of resources and will not help prescription drug abusers, partly because the state has only a handful of addiction specialists.” (Hertel)
     

The twist in this epidemic, that the government does not have the power to single handedly crush it, puts responsibility on the public to do its part.
   

 “I used to think that the only way to deal with prescription drug abusers was to put them in jail,” Stressman said, “But now, after the drug abuse incidents I have experienced as well as interacting with the drug abusers themselves, I have realized that we were facing a social issue--a human weakness. We can solve the prescription drug crisis if we take human approach.” (Stressman)

Works Cited

"Drug Facts: Prescription Drugs." NIDA For Teens. USA.gov, 1 Dec. 2015. Web. 13  Dec. 2015. .

Emerson, Aaron. "Teen Presription Drug Abuse." Personal interview.

Hertel, Elizabeth. "Teen Presription Drug Abuse." Personal interview.

"Prescription Drugs & Cold Medicines." National Institute on Drug Abuse. USA.gov,  Mar. 2015. Web. 13 Dec. 2015. .

Stressman, John. "Teen Presription Drug Abuse." Personal interview.

Vail, Linda S. "Teen Presription Drug Abuse." Personal interview.