Prescription Drugs

by Lindsey D.

We've all heard the old phrase sex, drugs and rock & roll; and in our minds imagine the long hair, tie dye shirts, weed smoking hippies, who once attended Wood stock. There is an undeniable correlation between the three parts of the phrase, and for every person a different image which comes to mind. When I think drugs, I think cocaine, LSD, heroin, meth, crack, and of course marijuana. I think of the drugs of the rock stars. The drugs of Iggy pop, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and other rock legends.

Drugs have always played a role in celebrity lifestyles, and have almost always emulated or influenced drug trends among the public.Over the past few years, prescription drug abuse has gained media attention by the unintentional deaths of celebrities Stars such as Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith, and Michael Jackson, have all been victims of prescription drug fatalities. Drugs no longer refer exclusively to the notoriously glamorized drugs of the past, such as cocaine, heroin, and LSD, but now pertain to the little pills in the orange bottles which sit in our medicine cabinets.

These drugs which often come at a hefty price tag, have ultimately become the drugs of the wealthy. The appeal for these drugs often above other "street" drugs lies in the protection of the orange prescription bottle.There is no drug awareness program which tells you not to take medicine, and because these pills reside within these familiar containers users often associate them as "safer". This safeness factor is dangerous. It is the seed of denial which allows a user to become hooked, and eventually addicted. Oxycotin,Vicodin, Xanax, Adderall, and other "pharmies," have made their mark in the past few years, as availability of these drugs sit within household medicine cabinets. The undeniable subtleness of prescription drug abuse lies within these cabinets. These drugs are not sold by drug dealers, they are prescribed by doctors; these drugs are not grown out in the wild, but are created within a lab. These are the drugs that are done behind closed doors, the drugs which are hard to monitor. There is no image which defines a prescription drug abuser, there is no image which is even remotely equivalent to the tie die wearing hippy of the sixties.