Prescription medications can effectively treat health conditions when used properly, but abusing them can lead to serious health risks. Common side effects of misusing prescription drugs include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, shaking, drowsiness and potential addiction, hospitalization, or death. While most people use prescription drugs responsibly, abuse of medications like opioids, stimulants and tranquilizers has significantly risen in recent decades, especially among teens, with over 2 million young people abusing painkillers by 2000.

1. Prescription Drugs By: Cristian Alvarado and the amazing Joel Miller

2. Prescription medications such as pain relievers, central nervous system, depressants, and stimulants are highly beneficial treatments for a variety of health conditions. Pain relievers enable individuals with chronic pain to lead productive lives; tranquilizers can reduce anxiety and help patients with sleep disorders; and stimulants help people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder focus their attention.

3. Most people who take prescription medications use them responsibly. But when abused, prescription medications can produce serious adverse health effects, including addiction.

5. Nausea and vomiting

6. Uncontrollable diarrhea

7. Spastic shaking

8. Drowsiness, dizziness and insomnia

9. Loss of consciousness

10. Addiction

11. Hospitalization

13. Stats In 2000, 43 percent of those who ended up in hospital emergency rooms from drug overdoses-nearly a half million people-were there because of misusing prescription drugs. 1 in 5 teens has abused a prescription (Rx) pain medication 1 in 5 report abusing prescription stimulants and tranquilizers

14. Continued… Over the past decade-and-a-half, the number of teen and young adult (ages 12 to 25) new abusers of prescription painkillers such as oxycodone (OxyContin) or hydrocodone (Vicodin) has grown five-fold (from 400,000 in the mid-eighties to 2 million in 2000).

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21. http://www.painfullyobvious.com/rxdrugabuse_3.asp