Prescription drugs find place in teen culture

0 Comments | USA TODAY, June, 2006 | by Donna Leinwand

When a teenager in Jan Sigerson's office mentioned a "pharm party" in February, Sigerson thought the youth was talking about a keg party out on a farm.

"Pharm," it turned out, was short for pharmaceuticals, such as the powerful painkillers Vicodin and OxyContin. Sigerson, program director for Journeys, a teen drug treatment program in Omaha, soon learned that area youths were organizing parties to down fistfuls of prescription drugs. Since February, several more youths at Journeys have mentioned that they attended pharm parties, Sigerson says.

"When you start to see a pattern, you know it's becoming pretty widespread," she says. "I expect it to get worse before it gets better."

Drug counselors across the USA are beginning to hear about similar pill-popping...