Large Decrease Seen in Teens Who Use Often Prescribed and Intentionally Misused Prescription Drugs

A new study finds a large decrease in the percentage of teens who use commonly prescribed and intentionally misused prescription medications, HealthDay reports.

Researchers at the University of Michigan analyzed data from 2009 to 2022 and found during that time high school seniors reported steep declines in medical use, intentional misuse and availability of the three most commonly prescribed and misused controlled substances for teens. The findings were published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. The percentage of teens who said they intentionally misused prescription medications in the past year has fallen from 11% to 2%, the researchers found.

“To put these findings in context, the reduction over the past decade was like going from one in every nine high school students using prescription drugs nonmedically down to one in every 40 high school students,” researcher Sean Esteban McCabe said in a news release.

Study co-author Philip Velez noted, “Prescribing practices have changed dramatically because we had an opioid epidemic, which turned into a heroin epidemic, and we’re still reeling from that, especially with fentanyl. A lot of this also has to do with parents having better knowledge and oversight of these medications.”