I'm really surprised this is news, I'm pretty sure this has been going on for at least a decade. It has become a part of H.S, culture for some. Lets face it, its not just the parents who are getting prescribed some "fun" medications. Teens get Vicodin for getting their wisdom teeth pulled, teens are selling their ADHD meds in the school hallway, trading antidepressants. I saw this going on in high school and I see pretty much the same thing as an undergrad. Its very sad.

Fad? Cultural influences upon drug abuse? That is crazy talk. These kids each have a biologically based genetic mental "brain disorder." We need to get their DNA, and figure out what genes they have in common. And to suggest that parents bear any responsibility? That is crazy talk.

Wow, seriously? I thought at first this had to be one of those urban legends along the lines of "rainbow parties" or the like. This is insane. Overdosing on antidepressants? What? I always found that the kids who were most into drugs were also walking pharmaceutical encyclopedias. Maybe that's just an indication of the kind of people I hung out with. It isn't the experimentation that worries me; it's the unwillingness to even take 15 minutes to look something up to see exactly what it does and what the dangers are. How lazy do you have to be? Jeez.

"It isn't the experimentation that worries me; it's the unwillingness to even take 15 minutes to look something up to see exactly what it does and what the dangers are. How lazy do you have to be? Jeez."

Seriously. We have the internet now. Who the hell would use statins recreationally? I could kind of see this happening because of the backwards way pharmaceuticals are promoted as legitimate and safe while naturally occurring psychoactives are made to seem like dirty street drugs, but even given that I still don't understand why anyone would ignore the question of whether the substance you're planning to ingest will actually get you high.

Also, @ Philip: LSD is arguably safer than peanut butter (never heard of "LSD allergy," although it does have that uterine activity which might be a problem for pregnant women) and definitely not a health risk like inhalants are, but you did say the risk of brain damage was just how you "felt." I personally wouldn't want to be under the influence of any hallucinogen at this point in my life, but I'd take some LSD over poison like Seroquel in a heartbeat.

I was reading stories on this trend a couple years ago. Apparently, it was the latest adult party fad in LA (surprise, surprise) at the time.

I think it is a disturbing symbol of the insidious, far-reaching tentacles of the pharmaceutical industrial complex - now reaching far into the recreational realm.

Philip, I was one of your late-70's teen peers who smoked a lot of pot, drank cheap beer and did the odd hit of LSD or mushrooms, but at least we knew what we were taking and our recreational drugs were confined to what I would say are relatively harmless types compared to what kids are exposed to today. About the wildest thing that happened to us as kids - smoking too much weed and falling asleep in the backseat of the car with girlfriend listening to Pink Floyd on the car's 8-track player.

These pharma parties seem like much more nihilistic-type expression of youth culture. A new spin on the old game of Russian roulette. But remember, unlike us in the 70's, kids today have been diagnosed -- ADHD, depressed, bipolar, OCD, DSM childhood-syndrome-of-the-week -- from the age of 3, and have been fed a steady diet of pharma drugs, so to them, maybe these 'parties' are no big deal.

These teenage drug parties have been floating around as urban myth for decades now.

Do you have some independent journalistic proof of these claims, Philip, or are you repeating the internet postings of mlive.com?

I'd just like to know the basis before I start forming any personal opinions.

Fair questions, and thanks,

Steve

Oh, brother. Not this again...

Jack Shafer over at Slate has been debunking these stories for years:
http://www.slate.com/id/2214444/
with links to his previous media research columns.

Having been a teenager not long ago, and with a share of recreational experience, I can tell you that teens don't need their parents' statins and don't care about then. Oh, there are a few idiots, but most know what labels to look for, and they'll take what they know is good (or suspect is good). The Internet lets you look up anything, anyway.

More importantly, a few key pills missing here and there is far less likely to get you in trouble than three or four bottles missing.

Please. The kids aren't alright, but no scare stories without doing your research. We aren't any more messed up than you were.

we had phama-parties early 1980+s - NZ-we would go and score what ever shit we could get off doctors and put it in the jug of juice and bingo-mostly we did pain-killers-tranx and psy drugs-I just think the contents has changed now-

Also part of the charge of it all-being a teen-ager and what was NOT knowing what drugs you were taking-Who cared-?-we only cared if some-one turned blue-or fell threw the pattio door

I am ashamed to admit to doing this in the 70's in the UK .It was mostly benzo's but some unusual stuff also came around, like Dexedrine.
It got interesting when we realised you could look up the meds and figure out what psychiatric disorders the parents had..(.whats your diagnosis Mrs Robinson?) And little wonder that your teens were so messed up...
Hey, its a cheap. available and easy means of getting'out of it'. Of course teens are going to do it. I recommend making pharmaceutical studies required in High schools and also making sure kids know to act quickly if their friends OD.

This is another example of scare-tactics blending in insidiously with half-truths. Yes, teenagers love painkillers, benzos, anything with an opiate in it - anything that feels good. However, all teenagers are not suddenly brainless.

Statins take weeks to come into effect .. and anti-depressants? The most that teenagers care about those is in a bittersweet, artistic context, a beautiful trainwreck sort of sense, and those are the teenagers with a paintbrush and a "mood disorder", who might take something reflective out of the soul poison they were prescribed. Taking them to get high .. that's almost in league with the kid in the corner bonking himself in the head with a baseball bat to make his eyes roll into his head. Yeah, it has an effect, but most know that there are better effects to be had.

I will have you know that I am 21, right out of exposure and experience, and only the idiot of the party would take an anti-depressant to have a good time. The rest know what they want because they can take two seconds to Google "opiate", or what have you.

There is also a misconception about the ignorance of teenagers, as per usual. Nobody is as smart as their predecessors, surprise surprise. If teenagers in the 70s could do a little research about what they were ingesting, then it only makes sense that with a whole world of resources at the touch of a button, modern teenagers could do the exact same, maybe! with more ease.

Teenagers have not changed over the years - some will do their research, some won't. Those that don't, well, at our parties, we always just made sure they got the help they needed, and otherwise simply stopped inviting them. Nobody wants to be responsible for the guy who took too much Effexor in hopes of having a good time and landed himself with Serotonin Syndrome.