Health Education Teaching Plan on OTC Drug Abuse in Teen

Over the Counter Prescription
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Abstract
Prescription drugs bought over the counter are turning into a health care menace. Teenagers re slowly adopting the habits of abusing prescription drugs to get a high. The notion behind the preference is that they are thought to have less effects on health compared to conventional drugs such as cocaine and meth among others. The education program will use three main prongs that is peers, parents and the teachers to educate the teens on dangers of using prescription drugs.
Introduction
The misuse of prescription drugs among the youths has now turned into a national problem health problem (Malliarakis, 2016). The gap between the new users for the prescription and that of marijuana is slowly closing. Like most other drugs the youths are involved in, the prescription drugs provide a high. The perception among most of the youths that are using the prescription drugs on the streets is that they are much safer that the other conventional hard drugs that are on the streets. This as such, has prompted most of the youths t opt for the high that comes with getting the prescription drugs other than drugs such as marijuana, cocaine an meth, which have some significant documented health impacts (Drugabuse.gov, 2016). It is also established that teens that abuse the prescription drugs are twice as likely to use alcohol. Research indicates that, opioids, antidepressants and depressants are responsible for more drug overdose deaths than heroin, cocaine, amphetamines and meth combined (Malliarakis, 2016). This is an aspect that requires some subtle consideration, as it represents the next drug abuse frontier in teens that needs to be addressed relative to the health implication, social and economic now and in the future.
Background
Prescription drugs abuse is a problem that is now taking the world over by storm, as more youths try the new high on the streets. The perception among most of the youths using the drugs is that these are much safer that the traditional drugs which have for the longest time been documented to have detrimental health complications. As such, the youths mostly engage in the use of the prescription drugs relative to misinformation. The rate of new users for the prescription drugs is fast rising and second to that of marijuana. While marijuana has been considered to be the entry point for most of the hard drugs such as cocaine and meth, prescription drugs are now the entry point for alcohol abuse.
There are more youths that die from overdoses caused by antidepressants, depressants and opioids that there are from conventional drugs such as cocaine, heroin, amphetamines and meth combined. In 2005, there were more than four million teenagers were admitted for having taken prescription drugs. In the same year more than half a million of 1.4 million cases of emergencies among the youth were related to prescription drugs abuse (Foundation for a Drug-Free World, 2016). While in the past, the drug abuse problem has been closely associated with the African American communities, this has since changed and now affects even more white Americans. While this is not a premise for the research, it is a clear indication of the prevalence of the pr...