Addiction specialists say they’re expecting an onslaught of teens addicted to Xanax and other sedatives in a class of anti-anxiety drugs known as benzodiazepines, or ‘benzos.” Many teens view Xanax as a safer and more plentiful alternative to prescription opioids and heroin – with similar euphoric effects.
But addiction experts warn that the pills kids are taking, often found in their parents’ or grandparents’ medicine cabinets, can be just as deadly as opioids, especially when taken in combination with other drugs or alcohol. And it’s much harder to kick the habit.
Nationwide, prescription drug abuse among adolescents has dropped dramatically in the last 15 years, according to survey results published in December by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Last year’s results indicate that about 4 percent of high school seniors misused prescription painkillers, a sharp decline from 2004, when nearly 1 in 10 teens misused opioids.
In fact, an increasing percentage of high school kids – at least 26 percent of seniors in 2014, up from 5 percent in 1976 – are abstaining from all substances, including alcohol, marijuana and tobacco, according to an historical analysis of the survey data published in July.
Even so, addiction practitioners say they’re seeing a surge in the number of young patients who are hooked on Xanax. Many take high daily doses of the drug, sometimes in deadly combination with opioids and alcohol.
“Adolescent benzo use has skyrocketed” said Sharon Levy, director of adolescent addiction treatment at Boston Children’s Hospital and lead author of the adolescent drug use study “and more kids are being admitted to hospitals for benzo withdrawal because the seizures are so dangerous.” At the same time, she said, far fewer kids are seeking treatment for prescription opioid addiction.
Marc Fishman, an addiction psychiatrist and professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said benzos are quickly overtaking opioids as the primary prescription drug of abuse among the adolescent patients he sees at Mountain Manor Treatment Centers in Baltimore and other Maryland locations. And many of them are extreme, high-dose users, he said.
Like opioids prescribed for pain, benzodiazepines prescribed for anxiety eventually stop working, forcing users to take higher and higher doses to get the same effect. Kids who can’t get the pills at home buy them on the dark web or concoct designer versions of benzos in their bathtubs, he said.
But no medicines exist to blunt the withdrawal symptoms and cravings associated with benzodiazepine addiction. Instead, patients typically enter residential treatment where a specialist gradually tapers them off the medication. If stopped too quickly, benzodiazepine withdrawal can result in seizures and even death.
The burgeoning abuse of Xanax and other benzodiazepines among high school kids and young adults over the last several years primarily stems from the fact that there are more of the pills out there, Levy argued.
As more adults are prescribed Xanax, Valium, Ativan and other benzodiazepines to calm their nerves and promote sleep, “we’re creating these vast reservoirs for kids to find,” she said.
The other problem, she said, is that adolescents think the benzos are safe because their parents use them. Many kids say they don’t take the pills to get high; they take them to feel normal, Levy said. “Some patients even ask me to just prescribe Xanax for them so they don’t have to buy it illegally. They think it’s good for them.”
“That one idea – that something is safe or beneficial or medical – has launched many an epidemic in the past,” Levy said. “So, my colleagues and I are watching this with trepidation.”