Prescription drug abuse called 'epidemic'

WASHINGTON, July 8 (UPI) -- Prescription drug abuse is described as epidemic in a Columbia University study that says parents, police and others are still not paying enough attention.

The estimated 15.1 million abusers of prescription drugs exceed the combined number abusing cocaine, hallucinogens, inhalants and heroin, the report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at New York's Columbia University said.

Of those, 2.3 million are teenagers, but youngsters turn to prescription drugs at much higher rates than adults do, the study found.

Teenagers arrange "pharming parties" where they swap drugs they have spirited from home or purchased off the streets or online, the report said.

"Availability is the mother of abuse," Joseph A. Califano Jr., the center's chairman and former U.S. secretary of health, education and welfare, told the Washington Post.

The center's three-year study analyzed 15 national data sets, collected information on Internet pharmacies, and conducted original interviews and surveys among doctors and pharmacists.