New Trends in Teen Drug Use

Back to school for teens can mean back to stress, back to deadlines, and back to peer pressure. 

“New opportunities, new friends, see who could get what,” said Jack, a 21-year-old recovering drug addict who declined to give his last name. “From pills I went on to heroin and crack but I tried everything else in between.”
               
The Long Island native started using drugs when he was just 15 years old and a freshman in high school.  The beginning of the school year, Jack said, is when teenagers, especially new users, experiment with drugs.

“It can be any kid, it can happen anywhere," Jack said. "I didn’t plan on this.”

While the dangers of heroin, prescription pills, and bath salts are well known, Jack said parents should be aware of the latest trends, like huffing freon gas from air conditioning units, to using Nutmeg, something that can be found in most kitchen cupboards.

“I found out about the nutmeg and I just went and bought it and you have to eat lot of it and you get very nauseous and it’s horrible,” Jack said.

Many in the recovery community say the beginning of the school year means parents must be educated in not only the trends, but the techniques young people use to keep their drug use hidden.  Young people often hide drugs in lipstick tubes and electronic equipment.

Experts say parents should take inventory of items in their house, know how many prescription pills are in a bottle and even how much nutmeg is in the cupboard. 

Jack has been in a rehab treatment facility, and on the road to recovery for months. He said he chose to share his story in the hopes that he could spare at least one life and one family from the pain of addiction.

“I’m really happy to be clean,” Jack said confidently.

Paradigm Malibu is devoted to the provision of state of the art Teen Drug Treatment, Adolescent Behavioral Health, Mental Health and Emotional Health Treatment. To learn more about our services, please visit our web site at: www.paradigmmalibu.com

Tough Love--The Teen Abuse Industry

While Wilderness Camps harm youth today at an alarming rate.  Over twenty years ago, in May 1990 news of Wilderness Camp abuse painfully came to light as a group of teenagers began hiking up Mt. Dellenbaugh in Arizona. 

It is a extremely hot day. Some seven thousand feet of windy, dry Arizona desert lies ahead of them. Just days into their journey a young 15 year old says she can’t continue. She starts throwing up her water, falling down and complaining of blurred vision. The group didn’t have radios that could reach as far down the mountain as help was so the other young people lit fires around the collapsed girl to signal for help. 18 hours later a plane passing overhead saw the fires and the body of Michelle Sutton was finally taken down the mountain. If you think this is the story of some lost teenagers who didn’t pay attention to park ranger safely warnings you’d be wrong. Instead this is the story of an industry gone mad. This is the story of a multi-million dollar industry that preys on traumatized teenagers and their desperate parents. It continues to this day.

Michelle’s parents had paid over $13,000 for a 63 day program called Summit Quest. A program Michelle herself had willingly gone to after a series of events culminating in a date rape. She wanted to get away from the boy that had raped her, to get her head on straight. She was looking forward to coming back healthier and with the school credits the course said it would give. Instead, Michelle got minimum wage counselors who ignored her pleas for help and watched her die. You’d think after twenty years and lost licenses this terrible tragedy would have taught somebody something, at least the government, if not the therapists running such programs. This is not the case. The teen abuse industry is big and profitable and going strong with more teens being forced to enter these programs every year.

In 2012 the industry uses different names for these places, behavior modification centers, wilderness programs, boot camps, treatment centers and emotional growth boarding schools to name a few euphemisms. They all have similar tactics, though, with very little oversight. Many of the people in charge have no real training and no special qualifications. It’s an industry dominated by the unproven idea that these often already traumatized teens need harsh discipline and brutal confrontation. Tactics include sleep deprivation, use of “stress positions,” hard labor, physical punishment, emotional abuse and public humiliation. “Breaking” the children is usually followed by indoctrination. There is often limited parental contact and limited contact with the outside world so these places avoid the kind of scrutiny that could save teen lives. These programs are allowed to hold a child until they are 18 with no diagnosis and very little contact with the outside world.

- Cell phone video from Corpus Christi showed state employees forcing residents to fight, no criminal charges were filed.
-children being forced to scrub pots with undiluted bleach
-17 year old strangled to death
-13 year old boy killed in a restraint at a Georgia wilderness camp 

There’s an entire web page of children who have died from beatings, restraint, hyperthermia, and head trauma by these facilities. If you’re interested in the extent of this problem they can be found at http://www.teenadvocatesusa.org/INMEMORIAM.html

The “tough love” movement has its beginnings in the 70’s and 80’s with programs like “Straight, Inc.” Parents paid huge sums, as much as $5,000 a month, and very little medical supervision or even a diagnosis was needed to place a child in a program. As the 90’s rolled around it became common for courts to order young delinquents to these programs. The problem with the “tough love” movement is it lends itself to abuse and never really addresses the real issues the teen may have. Behavior is micromanaged, often dictating things such as the number of toilet paper squares used, at a time when psychologists agree young people need to learn critical thinking and how to interact socially. Some of these young people have no issues at all. They are enrolled because they are in the midst of divorce or for things like being gay in a family who disagrees with that. Other times the teen actually belongs under the care of a real psychiatrist for serious things like depression or mental illness. Some of them have been abused, and for those children especially, the last thing they need is more dehumanization, confrontation, and humiliation. It’s well known that the “tough love” approach doesn’t work. In ’04 the NIH released a consensus statement saying the approach does not work and even admitting that it may make matters worse, some young people leaves these programs with PTSD. Unfortunately, these programs can appear to work. Being emotionally terrorized can produce a compliance that looks like success. Also most young people do eventually grow out of bad behavior. There is no agency the equivalent of the FDA to prove that these programs are safe or effective leaving often desperate parents to rely on slick sales pitches. And anyone can claim to be an expert.

All this continues today. Right now judges and parents are sending young people to these programs to be abused. Programs with employees like the one who said, “If I can’t make a kid puke or piss in his pants the first day, I’m not doing my job.” My state’s own “training school” had over 13,000 reports of abuse since 2004 alone. They’ve been sued twice, once by the Justice Department in a suit that stated how the youngsters were thrown into cells naked and forced to eat their own vomit. The Justice Department has filed suits in 11 other states and yet, right now, laws that could prevent this sit and wait for action that isn’t coming. Bills such as HR 911 which has sat in the House for two years waiting to be rewritten. As Congressman George Miller stated, “This nightmare has remained an open secret for years.” When punishments are handed out they are mere wrist slaps. In ’05 a man was convicted because he squeezed some boys’ testicles so hard they had to seek medical attention. He got five years probation and a 90 day sentence he got to serve on the weekends. That’s actually viewed as a good outcome because so many of these young people never see justice. It’s a guard’s word against theirs, or records are altered to protect the guilty. Faith-based centers are even harder to regulate. Missouri and Montana to name a couple are very quick to vote down any bill that might regulate a faith- based residential treatment facilities. Republicans frequently scuttle bills that might prevent some of the abuse and torture these young people go through. Representative Christie Clark, herself a mother, cast the victims of these places as “unreliable witnesses who struggle with truthfulness.” The operators of these torturous places have a special knack for avoiding prosecution. They will go from state to state opening centers under different names. You ban one of them from working with children in one state they will go to another and start all over again. Authorities raided one center and found a boy in his underwear on the floor of a dark isolation cell. Those in charge received suspended sentences and probation and the “school” reopened again elsewhere. Another raid uncovered handcuffs, leg irons, rifles and handguns, this time, Jack Patterson, the perpetrator of many a beating got away with a 500$ fine and is now happily opening schools in three other states.

The bottom line? At both state and federal levels this sick industry has key political support. Mitt Romney’s campaign is close to the Utah teen homes, they are helping fund his 2012 run as they did his 2008 run. Courts promote them as an alternative and they receive numerous grants. A number of deaths prompted a GAO report and congressional hearings out of which came the HR911 but even this has been fought against by the likes of Hephzibah House's Ron Williams, Reclamation Ranch's Jack Patterson, and the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs. In ‘10, a Keeping All Students Safe Act, that would have banned the use of seclusion and physical or chemical restraints by any school that benefits from federal education money died in the Senate mostly due to GOP members whose districts host tough-love schools. Right now at least one spin-off of Straight, Inc remains open.

The best option for teens seeking recovery are youth focused, teen recovery centers that primarily seek to gently uncover the roots to addiction and by creating a supportive and caring environment, help to lead young people through the path of recovery.  Luckily parents are beginning to utilize these facilities.  Still, others continue to send their children to abusive and debilitating Wilderness Programs.

Paradigm Malibu is devoted to the provision of state of the art Teen Drug Treatment, Adolescent Behavioral Health, Mental Health and Emotional Health Treatment. To learn more about our services, please visit our web site at: www.paradigmmalibu.com

Katie Couric Struggled with Bulimia as a Teen

Katie Couric reveals on her show today that she struggled with bulimia from her late teens to her early 20s.

“I wrestled with bulimia all through college, and for two years after that,” the talk show host tells eating disorders specialist Cynthia Bulik, according to a transcript of today’s show obtained by ABCNews.com.

Couric’s revelation comes amid  her interview today with pop star and “X Factor” judge Demi Lovato, who has also battled eating disorders.

“I know this rigidity, this feeling that if you eat one thing that’s wrong, you’re full of self-loathing and then you punish yourself, whether it’s one cookie or a stick of gum that isn’t sugarless, that I would sometimes beat myself up for that,” Couric says on today’s show, which airs on ABC at 3 p.m.

Bulik praises Couric for coming forward with her struggle and showing others that it’s possible to recover from an eating disorder.

“It’s like you can look into the future and someone can say, ‘This is possible. Recovery is possible. I can change my thoughts that way.’ And just the honesty behind saying, ‘Yeah, I do still struggle. And these thoughts do come into my mind sometimes.’ But just knowing that you can get past that, and learning strategies from someone who’s been there, that’s what it’s all about in terms of recovery,”  Bulik says.

Paradigm Malibu is devoted to the provision of state of the art Teen Drug Treatment, Adolescent Behavioral Health, Mental Health and Emotional Health Treatment. To learn more about our services, please visit our web site at: www.paradigmmalibu.com

Best Forms of Treatment for Teen Anxiety

Like other medical conditions, anxiety disorders tend to be chronic unless properly treated. Most kids find that they need professional guidance to successfully manage and overcome their anxiety.

Several scientifically proven and effective treatment options are available for children with anxiety disorders. The two treatments that most help children are cognitive-behavioral therapy, medication

No one treatment method works best for every child; one child may respond better, or sooner, to a particular method than another child with the same diagnosis.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)

Cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT, is a type of talk therapy that has been scientifically shown to be effective in treating anxiety disorders. CBT teaches skills and techniques to your child that she can use to reduce her anxiety.

Your child will learn to identify and replace negative thinking patterns and behaviors with positive ones. He will also learn to separate realistic from unrealistic thoughts and will receive “homework” to practice what is learned in therapy. These are techniques that your child can use immediately and for years to come.

The therapist can work with you to ensure progress is made at home and in school, and he or she can give advice on how the entire family can best manage your child’s symptoms.

CBT is generally short-term—sessions last about 12 weeks—but the benefits are long-term.

Other forms of therapy

• Acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT, uses strategies of acceptance and mindfulness (living in the moment and experiencing things without judgment) as a way to cope with unwanted thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
• Dialectical behavioral therapy, or DBT, emphasizes taking responsibility for one’s problems and helps children examine how they deal with conflict and intense negative emotions.
• Residential therapy can be helpful for teens with extreme, acute anxiety.  This allows youth to have a brief "time out" from the stressors of life.

Medication

Prescription medications can be useful in the treatment of anxiety disorders. They are also often used in conjunction with therapy. In fact, a major research study found that a combination of CBT and an antidepressant worked better for children ages 7-17 than either treatment alone.

Medication can be a short-term or long-term treatment option, depending on how severe your child’s symptoms are and how he or she responds to treatment.

It is also essential to let your doctor know about other prescription or over-the-counter medications your child takes, even if it is for a short period.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are currently the medications of choice for the treatment of childhood and adult anxiety disorders. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of some SSRIs for the treatment of pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Other types of medications, such as tricyclic antidepressants and benzodiazepines, are less commonly used to treat children. 

A warning from the FDAThe FDA issued a warning in October 2004 that antidepressant medications, including SSRIs, may increase suicidal thoughts and behavior in a small number of children and adolescents. However, the FDA has not prohibited or removed these medications, and no suicides were reported in the studies that led to the warning.

You should not necessarily refuse to give your child medication, but you should watch for signs of depression and talk to your child’s doctor or therapist about any concerns. Untreated anxiety disorders in children increases the risk for depression, social isolation, substance abuse, and suicide.

Side effectsSSRIs are generally tolerated with few side effects. The most commonly reported physical side effects include headache, stomachache or nausea, and difficulty sleeping.

Before prescribing medication, your child’s physician must determine the presence of any physical symptoms that may be related to medical problems or reflect anxiety. Make sure the physician reviews side effects with you and your child before starting an SSRI and monitors for symptoms at follow-up visits.

Remember that a small number of children may develop more serious side effects, such as thoughts about suicide.

Paradigm Malibu is devoted to the provision of state of the art Teen Drug Treatment, Adolescent Behavioral Health, Mental Health and Emotional Health Treatment. To learn more about our services, please visit our web site at: www.paradigmmalibu.com

Treating for Depression Can Prevent Teen Drug Abuse

Treating adolescents for depression can reduce their chances of abusing drugs later on, new research has found.

Researchers at Duke University found that only 10 percent of 192 adolescents whose depression receded after 12 weeks of treatment later abused drugs, compared to 25 percent of those for whom treatment did not work.

“It turned out that whatever they responded to — cognitive-behavioral therapy, Prozac, both treatments, or a placebo — if they did respond within 12 weeks they were less likely to develop a drug-use disorder,” said Dr. John Curry, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke.

The researchers followed nearly half of the 439 participants from the Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study, led by John March, M.D., chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center, which is considered the largest sample of adolescents who have been treated for major depression.

The participants analyzed by Curry’s study were between the ages of 17 and 23 at the end of the five-year follow-up study and had no preexisting problems with abusing alcohol or drugs.

The adolescents must have had at least five symptoms for a length of time to be diagnosed with major depression prior to treatment: depressed mood; loss of interest; disruptions in appetite, sleep or energy; poor concentration; worthlessness; and suicidal thoughts or behavior.

The researchers believe that improved mood regulation due to medicine or skills learned in cognitive-behavior therapy, along with support and education that came with all of the treatments, may have played key roles in keeping the kids off drugs.

The researchers were surprised to find there were no differences in alcohol abuse among the participants — and they admit they do not have an answer for why. Curry thinks the prevalence of alcohol use among people ages 17-23 may be a factor.

“It does point out that alcohol use disorders are very prevalent during that particular age period and there’s a need for a lot of prevention and education for college students to avoid getting into heavy drinking and then the beginnings of an alcohol disorder,” Curry said. “I think that is definitely a take-home message.”

Alcohol abuse also led to repeat bouts with depression for some participants, he said.

“When the teenagers got over the depression, about half of them stayed well for the whole five-year period, but almost half of them had a second episode of depression,” Curry said. “And what we found out was that, for those who had both alcohol disorder and another depression, the alcohol disorder almost always came first.”

Curry and co-author Dr. Susan Silva, associate professor and statistician in the Duke School of Nursing, believe more study is needed because the number of participants who developed drug or alcohol disorders was relatively small.

Also, there was no comparison group of non-depressed patients, so the researchers could not be sure that rates of subsequent drug and alcohol abuse disorders were higher than those for adolescents not treated for depression.

The study appears in the April-May edition of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.

Paradigm Malibu is devoted to the provision of state of the art Teen Drug Treatment, Adolescent Behavioral Health, Mental Health and Emotional Health Treatment. To learn more about our services, please visit our web site at: www.paradigmmalibu.com

Drug Trouble in the Suburbs

Joanne Campbell poses with a photo of her deceased son Tyler. Tyler was only 17-years-old when he died in August from a Fentanyl overdose.

Before she gently stroked his hair and kissed him on the cheek, Joanne Campbell shook her son and yelled at him to wake up. He was lying on a hospital bed and she was beside herself with grief.

Moments before, she had been told Tyler was dead at 17, likely from an overdose of Fentanyl, a powerful opioid painkiller and psychoactive chemical available only by prescription. She collapsed on the floor and then went to her son on the bed.

“I was in complete shock. I couldn’t breathe. I was just sick,” she says. “I was just screaming and yelling. He was just lying there.”

The Aug. 4 death of Tyler Campbell brought tragic attention to an increasing problem with Fentanyl abuse in Manotick, a situation police say has escalated to alarming heights. Addicted teenagers have resorted to residential break-ins looking for electronics, jewelry or anything they can sell to finance their addiction.

It’s unclear where the teens are getting their drugs, and police continue to investigate.

And It now seems the problem may have spread beyond Manotick. In the past three months, police have identified 20 to 25 break-ins in nearby Barrhaven they believe could be linked to the Fentanyl problem exploding in Manotick.
“It’s more widespread now,” says Const. Ryan O’Neil, a detective with the Ottawa police break and enter team. “It’s quite rampant.”

While police estimate about 30 high school students in Manotick are hooked on the opiate, Fentanyl abuse in the rest of the city is not as widespread as it is with other drugs, such as OxyContin.

The spike in Fentanyl abuse in the village south of Ottawa surfaced before a new version of OxyContin was introduced, which police thought might increase the use of other opiates.
OxyNeo pills are opioid painkillers just like their predecessor, but they have been hardened to prevent the risk of being broken, crushed or chewed.

Gary Wand, the associate director of Harvest House, an Ottawa rehabilitation centre, says he doesn’t expect Fentanyl abuse to spike in the rest of the city.

“You need to keep refuelling,” Wand says. “It’s like crack cocaine in an opiate — you have to keep taking more very quickly.”

That makes it more difficult to stay high. And because the high from smoking or injecting Fentanyl doesn’t last very long, Wand says that turns the more serious drug user to other opiates.

But in Manotick, for some reason, it seems to be a different story. The teenagers smoke, inject or ingest the drug, going through about one 75-milligram Fentanyl patch and $350 every two days, according to police.

According to Health Canada, Fentanyl is a synthetic opiate analgesic similar to morphine, but more potent. It is typically prescribed to treat patients with severe pain or to manage pain after surgery. It is also sometimes used to treat people with chronic pain who are physically tolerant to opiates.
“It is an extremely, extremely dangerous drug,” says Staff Sgt. Kal Ghadban, the officer in charge of the break and enter team. “It literally is a Russian roulette with these kids when they’re using it.”

A Manotick boy admitted to O’Neil that after he got hooked on Fentanyl he turned to crime to pay for his habit.

The boy, who under the Youth Criminal Justice Act who cannot be named, was first charged with 12 Manotick break-ins in September 2011. He was released from jail and ended up committing another dozen break-ins before he was arrested again in January.

The boy had never been in trouble with police before. He had achieved good grades in high school and several universities were looking at him for a possible football scholarship. But last April, the boy began abusing Fentanyl patches and became hooked.

“The high is like no other drug they’ve taken,” O’Neil says. “I think it puts them in a fantasy land — they are right out of it. In that short period of time, his whole personality, his character, everything just changed as a direct result of this addiction.”

As the boy waited in jail for a bed at a rehab centre to open up, a third rash of break-ins occurred, this time in Barrhaven. Police believe those may be related to the ones in Manotick.
Ghadban said a school resource officer in Manotick and two patrol officers intervened early in the 2011 school year, about a year ago. By the end of the year, Fentanyl abuse had increased significantly and the residential break-ins began in early 2012.

“Now they’re not just using, but they’re committing crimes,” Ghadban said.

Const. Monique Paquette, the school resource officer at St. Mark High School, began working with a counsellor from Rideauwood Addiction Family and Services to identify teenagers who were addicted to drugs, and some of the students went into treatment programs.

Paquette brought in a pharmacist give presentations at the school to help explain the Fentanyl’s dangerous effects. Meanwhile, two patrol officers began to spend more time in the community, talking to parents and teenagers about abuse of the drug.

“It’s not like this caught us off guard by any means,” Ghadban says. “Once we found out about it, we put measures in place to combat it and help the people who needed help.”

Despite early intervention and proactive policing, though, Fentanyl continued to plague Manotick. Tyler Campbell’s death sent shock waves through the small community.

Joanne Campbell sensed something wasn’t right with her son six months ago. Money, electronics and jewelry began to disappear from her home. Tyler worked steadily at Tim Hortons, but never seemed to have any money.

He became increasingly moody, had bags under his eyes and was often tired. Concerned that her son was on drugs, Campbell tried to talk to him a week before he died.

“He would be sitting there one minute and he would start nodding off and jolt himself up,” Campbell says.

On Aug. 4, she got a call that her son had been taken to the hospital without vital signs. Her ex-husband had woken Tyler up for work and discovered he was “cold and blue,” Campbell says.

An hour later, the teenager was pronounced dead at a Kemptville hospital.

Several worried parents, shaken by Tyler’s death, approached Lisa MacLeod, the Conservative MPP for Nepean-Carleton, about the rampant drug problem in Manotick.

“There’s almost a crisis situation in our community,” MacLeod says. “You’re talking about people who should be starting the next chapter of their life.”

MacLeod met Friday with Ottawa police, who have agreed to hold a public information session.

For MacLeod, her goal is to educate parents about warning signs, something Campbell discovered too late.

Paradigm Malibu is devoted to the provision of state of the art Teen Drug Treatment, Adolescent Behavioral Health, Mental Health and Emotional Health Treatment. To learn more about our services, please visit our web site at: www.paradigmmalibu.comwww.paradigmmalibu.com

California bans gay "conversion" therapy for minors

By Mary Slosson 

SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill barring a controversial therapy that aims to reverse homosexuality in minors, the measure's sponsor said on Sunday, making California the first state to ban a practice many say is psychologically damaging.

The move marked a major victory for gay rights advocates who say so-called conversion therapy, also called reparative therapy, has no medical basis because homosexuality is not a disorder.

The bill's sponsor, state Senator Ted Lieu, a Democrat from Torrance, said in a statement that Brown had signed the bill. An announcement from the governor's office was expected on Sunday.

The bill prohibits children and teens under 18 from undergoing sexual orientation change efforts. It got support from the California Psychological Association and the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, among others.

"LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) youth will now be protected from a practice that has not only been debunked as junk science, but has been proven to have drastically negative effects on their well-being," Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said in a statement.

He urged other states to follow California's lead.

Lieu said the psychiatrist who pioneered the therapy, Dr. Robert Spitzer, has since renounced it and has apologized to the gay and lesbian community.

"If anyone had any doubts such practices were evil, they need only listen to accounts of victims who went through this abusive practice," Lieu said in a statement.

During the legislature's consideration of the bill, people who had undergone the therapy as minors testified about why they wanted the practice banned.

"As a young teen, the anti-gay practice of so-called conversion therapy destroyed my life and tore apart my family," witness Ryan Kendall told legislators.

Several openly gay legislators gave emotional speeches in support of the measure, sharing how they were bullied because of their sexual orientation as youths.

All major medical and mental health organizations including the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association have denounced the practice, supporters said.

Opponents said the bill encroached on the rights of parents to make choices for their children. They also said politicians should not regulate what they considered to be a matter for medical boards to decide.

The measure will take effect on January 1.

(Reporting by Mary Slosson; Editing by Jackie Frank)

National Campaign Against Teen Prescription Drug Abuse Launches At San Diego High

SAN DIEGO — Illegal street drugs get a lot of attention, but over the past decade, abuse of prescription drugs has rapidly grown. As reported by KPBS last year, prescription drug-related deaths in the county have increased by 85 percent over the last decade. Prescription drugs are now the number one accidental cause of death in San Diego.

The numbers are especially high among teenagers. According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, more than a third of abusers of prescription drugs are between the ages of 12 and 17.

A non-profit group called WAKE UP! wants to tackle this problem by plastering high schools with educational materials. WAKE UP! launched its national campaign Monday morning at San Diego High School.

WAKE UP! organized a group of San Diego High students who handed out t-shirts, plastered lockers with magnets, painted car windows, and stuck signs all over school lawns and walls - all before the first school bell rang.

"We have a presence in the school for about a month - we actually take over the school, which is what you saw this morning," said Dr. Lora Brown, co-founder of WAKE UP!. "It's hard for any student on this campus to miss the message that we have."

Brown is a pain management physician, and she helped found WAKE UP! after she saw the abuse of drugs she regularly prescribed to her patients.

"The statistics show that about 2,500 students, teens between the ages of 12 and 17, use pain relievers for the first time every single day in this country," Brown said. "And the frightening thing is, once these kids become addicted, there's no cure for addiction. So the only solution in my mind, now, is through prevention, and prevention of first-time use. That's why we're here."

Brown emphasized the importance of managing the contents of your medicine cabinet.

"People don't realize that when they have unused portions of prescription drugs and they place them in their medicine cabinet, those drugs are at risk to be stolen, to be taken, by friends, by family, by housekeepers," Brown explained. "It's really important today that people learn how to dispose of their unused medicines properly."

Saturday is San Diego's next Prescription Drug Take Back Day. The Sheriff's website lists take-back sites and secure drop-boxes where you can bring your unwanted prescription medications.

The school takeover was followed by an interactive assembly, where students met Aaron Rubin, a student left paralyzed by his abuse of prescription drugs, and his mother Sherrie.

"Aaron overdosed on OxyContin in 2005 and as a result of that, he is now a quadriplegic, unable to talk or communicate the way your or I do," said Sherrie, standing next to her son in his wheelchair who can understand everything going on around him, but can only communicate using two of his fingers. "He was actually in a coma for three-and-a-half weeks. We were planning his funeral. Then they changed the antibiotics up and he started to open his eyes."

Sherrie says Aaron was a popular, athletic leader at his high school before his overdose. She thinks he was spared for a higher purpose.

"I'm very grateful that Aaron survived, and we're very blessed. I don't take that blessing lightly," Sherrie said. "I believe that Aaron is here to be able to show students, families, communities, that the abuse and misuse of prescription drugs can alter your life devastatingly."

Leaning down to speak to her son, Sherrie asked Aaron, "If you could go back in high school, would you choose to ever have taken prescription drugs? One for yes, two for no."

Aaron lifts the only body part he can still control: his left hand. He holds up two fingers, signaling his answer: no.

A grant from San Diego-based Millennium Laboratories funded the launch of WAKE UP! at San Diego High on Monday. Next, they'll have similar campaigns at other San Diego high schools, and then head to high schools all over the country. They'll continue to spread the message that Aaron embodies.