More Teens And Young Adults Are Overdosing Right After Getting A Prescription For Mental Health Drugs

The following report is from Study Finds:

The study found a high number of these overdoses involve a class of drug called benzodiazepine (BZD), which includes medications like Xanax. Other teens and young adults overdosed on psychostimulants like Adderall. All of these drugs are common treatments for mental health issues such as ADHD and anxiety.

While many people who overdose on drugs or prescription medications use substances they shouldn’t be touching, researchers say a significant portion have a legitimate prescription and reason for taking the pills they eventually misuse. With that in mind, the team examined how often people between 15 and 24 years-old overdosed on BZD or stimulants and how many recently received a doctor’s prescription for these medications

Recent Prescriptions Are Leading To Immediate Trouble

Between 2016 and 2018, results show 29 percent of the youths who overdosed on BZDs received a written prescription within one month of their overdose. More than four in 10 (42%) received a prescription for BZDs within six months of their overdose. One in four youths overdosing on mental health stimulants received a doctor’s prescription a month before the incident. Nearly four in 10 (39%) had their prescription for less than six months.

Study authors also found that young adults who intentionally overdosed on BZDs and stimulants were more likely to have a recent prescription than those who suffered an accidental overdose.

Given that a substantial proportion of youth with overdoses involving BZD or stimulants have prescriptions for these drugs in the prior months, physician encounters when these medications are prescribed may offer an opportunity to identify youth at high risk of overdose.

Says corresponding author Greta Bushnell, a member of the Center for Pharmacoepidemiology and Treatment Sciences at Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research (IFH), in a university release.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4,777 U.S. youths died of a drug overdose in 2019. BZD use accounted to 727 of these overdoses and 902 involved psychostimulants.

These findings highlight the need for physicians to assess youth for self-injury risk who are prescribed BZDs and stimulants, as well as the need for varying efforts to prevent intentional and unintentional overdoses. Further, since the potential for harm with BZDs and stimulants increases with other substances such as alcohol, illicit drugs, and opioids, discussions around limiting concurrent substance use is warranted.

Bushnell adds

The study is published in the journal Pediatrics.

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

[25] And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years, [26] And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, [27] When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.

Mark 5:25-27

And you don’t suppose this was all done on purpose, right? Do not be silly: the drug companies know EXACTLY what they are doing with this: it makes a perpetual patient out of the buyer.

Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.

Nahum 3:4

I have said it so many times over, but it bears worth repeating: the words ‘witchcraft’ and ‘sorcery’ in the New Testament are derived from the word “pharmakeia.” It sorceries that have helped utterly destroy the world, America especially (among many other things). It’s illegal when they’re sold in the ally ways, but it’s okay and perfectly ‘just’ when the military smuggles it in through the countries they destroy; or when the wicked sorcerer wearing a white coat sells it over-the-counter or on the shelf.

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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