Study sees prescription drug abuse at colleges

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About a fifth of U.S. college students are taking painkilling pills and other prescription drugs to get high, a study published on Monday showed.

And students who take prescription drugs for non-medical reasons are at least five times more likely to meet the definition of having a drug abuse problem than students not misusing them, the researchers reported in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The findings by researchers at the University of Michigan were based on a survey of 3,639 U.S. college students whose average age was just under 20.

"It's very easy to get addicted," Carol Boyd of the University of Michigan's Substance Abuse Research Center, who helped conduct the study, said in a telephone interview.

"They perceive prescription medications as safer than street drugs such as cocaine and heroin despite the fact that the stimulants and the opioids (painkillers) are just like cocaine and heroin. And they're very easy for them to get," Boyd added.

Students were asked if they had taken four types of prescription drugs: opioids; stimulants; sleeping pills; and sedative or anti-anxiety pills.

About 60 percent said they had used such drugs with a prescription for medical reasons, while 20 percent said they had taken such drugs for non-medical reasons.

The students also were asked whether they had done anything illegal to get drugs, whether they had blackouts due to drug use, felt guilty about drug use, or felt sick after stopping taking the drugs.