BY MARIA SPITALE-LEISK

A growing number of North Shore families face spiralling financial and emotional turmoil because of their teenager’s prescription drug habits, says one North Vancouver addictions counsellor.

“They (the addicts) end up holding the family hostage,” said Daryl Samson of the Orchard Recovery and Treatment Center on Bowen Island. “The parents are afraid of how they will react if they don’t get the drugs.”

What starts off with teenagers pilfering prescription drugs from the family medicine cabinet sometimes ends with them buying these same drugs – which in some cases have mark-up values of up to 7,000 per cent – from dealers on the street.

And adding to the parents’ frustration is the fact that people who abuse prescription drugs often display no outward signs of their addiction, says Samson.

“You have to be a bit of a detective,” he said.

While Samson suggests using some conventional investigative methods such as opening the lines of communication with your child, one California-based company has come up with a more foolproof method that uses DNA to detect prescription drug use.

Confirm BioSciences manufactures home drug-testing kits for five prescription medications, including Vicodin, OxyContin, and Percocet. Available through Vancouver-based retailer Astro Nutrition Inc. for approximately $115, the test requires 80 to 100 strands of hair with results showing how much of each drug has been consumed in the past three months.

There are few statistics on prescription drug abuse in this country; however the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse says available evidence suggests that Canadians are among the heaviest consumers of psychotropic medication in the world.

Samson believes there needs to be more education when it comes to prescription drug abuse. One former North Van prescription drug addict, who asked that his name not be used, explained it can be easy to manipulate the patient-doctor relationship. “I abused the relationship and got prescriptions filled that I didn’t need,” he said. “When you have an intramuscular injury it’s hard to prove that you are not in pain.”

He admits that he would go through two weeks worth of prescription pills in three or four days and “then go back for more.”

At the height of his addiction he was spending on average $800 a day to feed his habit, and also managed to find another way to take advantage of his doctors.

“I would steal script pads and sell them to my dealers,” he said the North Vancouver man who managed to get help for his prescription drug addiction at the Orchard Recovery and Treatment Center.

RESOURCES

-BC Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Addiction Services, 604-875-2345.

-Alcohol and Drug Information Referral Service, 604-660-9382.

-Kelty Resource Centre, 604-875-2084.