Generation Rx at Riverhead Middle School and Parent Survey
On Monday and Tuesday, November 20th and 21st, Riverhead CAP conducted Generation Rx medication safety presentations for all Riverhead Middle School students. Following the presentations, students are asking their parents to complete a four question survey so that they may be entered into a drawing to win a $100 Tanger gift card.
The mission of Generation Rx is to educate people of all ages about the potential dangers of misusing prescription medications. In doing so, the program strives to enhance medication safety among youth, college students, other adults in our community, and seniors. Prescription medications can help us live longer and healthier lives, but any medication has the potential to do harm – especially when misused.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), prescription drug abuse is the fastest growing drug problem in the United States, especially among teens. The CDC reports that one in five teens say they have taken prescription drugs without a doctor’s prescription and each day more than 2,000 teens use prescription drugs to get high for the first time. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found that nearly half of young people who inject heroin reported abusing prescription painkillers before starting to use heroin. Some individuals reported taking up heroin because it is cheaper and easier to obtain than prescription drugs. In addition, more people die from prescription drug overdoses than from all illegal drugs combined. In fact, prescription drug deaths are now the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S., outnumbering highway traffic fatalities.
There are several ways to practice medication safety, including:
- Only using prescription medications as directed by a health professional
- Never sharing your prescription medications with others or using someone else’s medications
- Always storing medications securely to prevent others from taking them, and properly disposing of medications that you no longer need
- Being a good example to those around you by modeling these safe medication-taking practices and discussing the dangers of misusing prescription drugs with your family, friends, colleagues, students, or patients.
