As parents we worry about so many things concerning the safety of our children and families. We shop for cars equipped with multiple airbags, install home security systems, train our children about stranger danger, follow computer safety protocols, and schedule regular immunizations to prevent childhood diseases. But, do we realize we might end up being the first drug dealer that touches our child’s life? What a preposterous question, right?

Take a short walk to your medicine cabinet or rifle through your purse. Check your kitchen counter or night stand. What do you find? Medicine for your occasional migraine? Leftover pain meds from an oral surgery? The possibilities are almost endless. Easy access and availability are major factors in youth misuse and abuse of prescription drugs. Drug abuse can snatch children away so quickly it happens before most parents even realize what is happening to their child, their family, and their lives.

The following statistics are merely a few describing the problem of prescription drug abuse by youth outlined in a recent report from the Office of the State Drug Director.

  • In 2007, Arkansas was reported to have the worst teen prescription pain reliever abuse problem in the entire U.S.
  • Non-medical sedative use is higher among Arkansas school children than the national average.
  • Arkansas sixth graders abuse prescription drugs more than any other substance except alcohol, tobacco, and inhalants.
  • Nationwide, prescription pain relievers have more first-time users than any illicit drug, including marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, inhalants, LSD, Meth, Heroin, and PCP.
  • Every day in the U.S., on average, 2,500 teens use prescription drugs to get high for the FIRST time.
  • Seven of the top 10 drugs which caused overdose deaths in Arkansas from 2002-2007 were prescription while one was an over the counter drug.
  • Medication abuse remains the number one cause of drug overdoses nationally.

Parents, caregivers, and communities can play a vital role in central Arkansas’ potential solution to youth prescription drug abuse. Local and national law enforcement entities, the Attorney General’s Office and several other committed agencies and individuals are organizing Prescription Drug Takeback events being held regularly across the state. For more information visit www.artakeback.org.

Lessons From Tragedy

Curt Bradbury, best known as a finance executive with the Stephens organization over the past three decades talked with Arkansas Business about the inspiration for his work on this issue. He and Benton Police Chief Kirk Lane were honored with the Marie Interfaith Civic Leadership Award for their work to address prescription drug abuse by teenagers.

Your 24 year-old son Cameron killed himself in 2010 after years of addiction. How did it get started?

I know exactly when it started. He had started marijuana at age 12. We were aware of that and tried everything to stop it. But we were on a family vacation, and he was grubbing around in his mother’s purse and found some hydrocodone that she had been prescribed, and he took it. Since he died we’ve looked at things he had written on his computer. We figured out that this was his ah-ha moment. “This feeling, the way this made me feel, was what I’d been looking for.” After he went to college, he was taking as many as 40 Lorcet tablets a day.

What have you learned that you want other parents to know?

I didn’t know this until after Cameron died, but according to the Office of National Drug Abuse Control Policy, Arkansas in 2010 had the highest rate of teen abuse of prescriptions in the country. One reason I took up this issue is that I don’t know how to stop abuse of marijuana or cocaine or heroin or methamphetamine or hard drugs coming across the border. But in our community, somehow prescription medications are coming from the medicine cabinet to the street and killing our kids. Now surely that’s something we can do something about. The reason you have to be an activist is some kid will head down the slippery slope and be able to make it back. Some kids will head down the slippery slope and NEVER make it back.

What can be done?

One thing that can help are the takeback programs which not many people know about. It’s simply that you clean out your medicine cabinet every once in a while. You don’t let things accumulate, and you don’t flush them down the toilet. The police have places where you can throw your prescription medication to be destroyed. When Kirk Lane became police chief in Benton, he saw that he had too many overdoses and too many drug-related suicides in his community. So he’s done a lot of work and he gets more drugs in his take-back program per capita than Little Rock does. The chief has cut his death by overdose rate and his death by drug-related suicide rate way down. He has saved lives. And that’s what we have to do a better job of here in Little Rock.

Another thing we have to get over is denial: Parents looking at bizarre behavior and saying, “No, no, that can’t be drugs. Not my little darlin’.” That’s something I can contribute to the conversation Yes, my little darling. Was I in denial for a time? Yes. Did I want it to go away? Yes. Denial goes from the addict to the family to the community. If you suspect your kid is on drugs, it’s worse than you think. If you know your kid is on drugs, it’s worse than you think. And by the time it gets to that point, it’s worse than you think.

National Prescription Drug Takeback Program Event

Responsibly discard your expired, unused or unwanted prescriptions during the statewide Prescription Drug Takeback Day Saturday, Sept. 29. From 10 a.m.-2 p.m., stop by locations, including Kroger in the Heights, UALR, UAMS and War Memorial Stadium to toss out pills. Bonus: At the Kroger location, volunteers will be on hand to hand out Gusano's and Taziki's gift certificates to everyone who turns in their prescriptions. Free.

School Takeback Events

• Pulaski Academy
Thursday and Friday, Aug. 9 and 10
8:00 to 3:00 p.m.

• Mount St. Mary Academy
Monday, Aug. 20, 6 p.m.

• Catholic High School for Boys
Wednesday, Aug. 22, 6 p.m.

• Episcopal Collegiate School
Thursday, Aug. 23
7 to 9 p.m.