" Hey kids, you want to get high?"

A group under the name of The 2004 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study, surveyed more than 7,300 teens, in the largest ongoing analysis of teen drug-related attitudes toward drugs in the country. Its margin of error is plus or minus 1.5 percent. Their studies have found very disturbing results within America's youth. They have found that about one in five teenagers has abused a prescription painkiller -- more than have experimented with either Ecstasy, cocaine, crack or LSD. One in 11 teens had abused over-the-counter products such as cough medicine, the study reported. According to the survey, the most popular prescription drug abused by teens was Vicodin, with 18 percent -- or about 4.3 million youths -- reporting they had used it to get high. OxyContin and drugs for attention-deficit disorder such as Ritalin/Adderall followed with one in 10 teens reporting they had tried them. They also found that nine percent, or about 2.2 million teens had experimented with cough syrup and other such products. When asked why, the most popular reason was the ease at which these items could be obtained and about half of them said that they did not see a great risk. What can be done to stop this ever growing epidemic? What kind of parenting issues does this spark?
http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/parenting/04/21/drug.survey.ap/index.html