Adolescent non-medical use of highly addictive prescription opioid drugs, such as Vicodin and Oxycontin;and tranquilizers, such as Valium and Xanax, is increasing. Although the reasons for increasing adolescent non-medical use of addictive prescription drugs are not known, we do know that they are widely advertised and sold over the internet without prescription. The Treatment Research Institute and Drug Strategies have conducted research on internet drug sales for the past four years and we believe that """"""""non-prescription websites (NPWs)"""""""" may be one important contributing factor to increasing adolescent use of these drugs. There has been no research on the role of the internet in supplying prescription medications to adolescents without a prescription. This revised RO1 will continue our investigations of the use of internet and other sources for drug purchase by high risk adolescents currently in residential treatment programs. We have a revised 30-minute data collection protocol using well-validated items from the CASI (Meyers et al., 1995 - 2007) that will be administered via a well-tested and engaging web interface (BubbleMonkey) to a purposive sample of 2000 adolescents (12 - 17) from 30 programs in a two-year data collection period. The data collection has been designed to completely protect confidentiality. The study has three primary aims: 1. To determine whether internet purchase is a significant source of drug availability for adolescents with serious substance abuse and addiction problems. We operationally define """"""""significant"""""""" as a prevalence rate of 20 percent or higher in this sample. 2. To determine whether internet drug availability is associated with a significant proportion of relapses following efforts to stop drug use. Again, we operationally define """"""""significant as a prevalence rate of 20 percent or higher. 3. To explore whether use of internet websites and other sources, differs as a function of demographic and drug use characteristics among these high-risk adolescents. Information is urgently needed about the relationship between rising rates of adolescent non- medical use of prescription drugs and internet websites that market those drugs without a prescription. This study will be the first to obtain this information directly from adolescents about internet sources of drug supply.
Adolescent non-medical use of highly addictive prescription opioid drugs, such as Vicodin and Oxycontin and tranquilizers such as Valium and Xanax, continues at high levels. These substances are widely advertised and sold over the internet without prescription, perhaps fostering adolescent use. This study will obtain information directly from adolescents about their use of the internet and other sources to obtain drugs.
| Festinger, David S; Dugosh, Karen L; Clements, Nicolle et al. (2016) Use of the Internet to Obtain Drugs without a Prescription Among Treatment-involved Adolescents and Young Adults. J Child Adolesc Subst Abuse 25:480-486 |
