My learning via Team Lazarus
Project Lazarus is a nonprofit organization that works to prevent drug abuse of all types in the state of North Carolina. Team Lazarus has been focused on prescription medicine abuse and misuse in Harnett County. I have taken an interest in the rising numbers of adolescent nonmedical use of prescription medication. I worked in a high school for the past eight years before furthering my education at Campbell University. During those eight years, I was not only the athletic trainer for the sports teams, but a mentor and a safe place to come for many students at that school. I was one of the people the kids knew they could turn to for advice, a shoulder to cry on, or even something that scared them. Because of that, I was informed on many levels of the behaviors of my athletes and their friends. I always did my best to steer them away from risky behavior but at minimum tried to make them understand they had to be as safe as possible in their behaviors.
I remember one young man that came into the athletic training room with nausea, dizziness, and confusion. Within moments he became unconscious and non-responsive. I called emergency medical services immediately and monitored his slow and week pulse and breathing. Word spreads fast at a high school. Immediately one of his friends came in and told me what we had already expected. I then had to call his mother back, who was driving to meet him at the hospital, ask her to pull over and listen to me. Her son was high and no one knew on what. Thankfully he was treated and released with no long-term damage from that single situation.
Another student had badly injured himself during a practice. I phoned for emergency medical services and the injury was resolved soon after. He was given a prescription for an analgesic and I did not see much of him for a couple months. Another student came into my room months later complaining about the first kid and how much he had changed since the surgery. Again, word travels fast in a high school and I was told by numerous kids that the injured athlete had become addicted to his pain medication. His parents had cut off the supply so he was searching in other places. The parents, student, councilors, and myself had many conversations that followed across the rest of his time at the school. A few years later I came into work to find out this young man had done something while he was high and was now in a coma. Within days there was no brain activity and his family had to watch their eighteen-year-old son die in a hospital bed.
The tragedy of this situation is a reality that many people face regularly. I did not realize until my work with Team Lazarus, just how prevalent this situation is. According to the Project Lazarus website, in the United States in 2008 there were 36,450 deaths caused by drug overdoses. Of those deaths, 20,044 were due to prescription medications. After doing more research I read that, during 2002 to 2005, on an annual basis, an average of 4.8% of persons 12 years or older were using prescription pain medication in a nonmedical manner within the past year. In a study comparing rural to urban prescription drug users, rural users were found to have significantly higher odds of snorting OxyContin that urban users. While the number of users are on the rise, the facilities in rural areas have not increased. The health disparities continue to become relevant when drug prevention and treatment centers are few and underutilized when facilities are present.
As if these numbers are not enough of a problem, adolescent drug use has increased from 1.1 million young people in America in 1992 to 2.6 million in 2005. From the years 1992 to 2003, nonmedical prescription medicine use among those under the age of 18 years has increase 212%, 2.6 times higher than users above the age of 18 years. In a national survey of high school senior students throughout the United States, nearly 1 in 8 reported nonmedical use of prescription opioids in their lifetime. Research correlates those using prescription drugs early in life have a higher risk of developing prescription drug addiction or dependence.
The rise of nonmedical use of prescription medication of the rural American youth is reaching epidemic levels and the death rate continues to climb. Something must be done. And must be done quickly. I am honored to have been a part of Project Lazarus and hope their work continues into the community of Harnett County to reach the adolescent population.
Community Care of North Carolina. Project Lazarus. Project Lazarus Web site. http://projectlazarus.org. Accessed November 1, 2014.
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