Prescription Safety

Misusing Prescriptions Affects Your Future

You’re Under A Lot Of Pressure

Being a teen can be hard – classes, exams, social pressure, family dynamics. It can be a struggle to learn how to manage the stress and anxiety that young adult life brings.

Some teens start misusing prescription drugs to try to deal with these pressures because they think they’re somehow safer than other drugs. They’re not safe. Many prescription painkillers and stimulants can affect your brain, changing the way it works.

What Could It Hurt?

As a teen, your brain is enormously flexible, learns rapidly and contains way more neurons than an adult brain. That’s why the teen brain can more quickly become addicted to medication or other drugs. Prescription pain pills such as OxyContin™ – or even Xanax™ and Adderall™ – have some pretty serious consequences on your developing brain.

These addictive drugs produce a flood of dopamine – the brain’s feel good messenger – and can damage your brain’s ability to produce it naturally. When you artificially raise your dopamine levels, you make it harder to feel good without the drug. It also makes it harder to stop using it.

These drugs may feel exciting in the short term, but once the initial high wears off, they can make you feel worse, causing you to feel fatigued, depressed, foggy and may also interfere with your ability to concentrate