AHS Views

Saturn Noriega, writer, CEO andformer Chicago politican, wrote an article recently in which he referred to “America’s fastest growing problem - an insatiable hunger for illegal drugs. ” The article praises drug testing in schools as a way to ‘help protect the innocent and straighten out the guilty’ before they wind up in jail or in need of addiction help.

Spot on, with one exception - while millions of Americans are still using illegal drugs, the real love affair seems to be with prescrption drugs. The school drug testing programs rarely include prescription drugs so no one knows the person is taking them until they get to the point where they need addiction help, a trip to the ER, or the undertaker.

The fact that prescription drugs aren’t tested for in schools is probably a big selling point for someone who wants to get high but doesn’t want to get caught. That, and the fact that you can just get them out of your parents (or a friend’s) medicine cabinet, and they don’t have a tell-tale odor like marijuana, meth and some other drugs, make them ideal.

And that’s why we have a prescription drug addiction and abuse epidemic and why more and more people are seeking addiction help for those drugs,  not the kind you get ‘on the street.’

Well, that’s not really why - the real reason is whatever is behind a person preferring a drugged state instead of reality. But that’s another story.

Until school drug testing includes prescription drugs, the number of kids taking drugs and needing addiction help services will continue. And, by the way, read Noriega’s very concise and insightful article into the drug scene.