A common misconception about recreational drug use is that teenagers are the largest age group affected. In reality however, senior citizens suffer from substance abuse more due to physical pains, mental issues, retirement, and the changing times.
Physically, senior citizens endure more health problems than any other age, which usually results in the prescribing of various medications, which can cause addiction. As more and more people over sixty are being put into senior care home and hospitals, to help with various injuries or illnesses, more of these seniors are gaining easier access to physician prescribed drugs. Common pain killers such as Morphine, Vicodin, and Percocet are widely given to seniors despite them being both extremely potent …show more content…
In many cases, seniors suffer from general mental illnesses such as depression, or anxiety due to the loss of family and friends, and the stress of getting older, which are all factors that could lead to the use of legal or illegal drugs used to cope. Prescribed narcotics such as Ativan, Klonipin or Xanax are given to senior citizens to eliminate feelings of panic, or dejection, but these drugs also have street value. Sometimes though, it is not just medications that are directly prescribed to senior citizens. Controversial, stronger street drugs are also used to deal with these mental issues. Amphetamines like cocaine, and meth as well as marijuana and heroin are just as easily found as controlled medications, sometimes at a lower …show more content…
In modern times, children and adults alike are being taught that the decision to do drugs is an unwise and unhealthy one. Decades ago though, when the senior citizens of today where children growing up, drugs where not only poorly understood, but they were popularized and marketed to people. Not so much the potent street drugs or the wide variety of controlled medications that are available today, but rather drugs like cigarettes and alcohol, which are legal, but no less addictive. Also, it was not until recently, that the dangerous effects of these legal drugs, or any drugs, where actually known about or publicized. It is also in the use of these drugs, that more people got into harder or “class” drugs later on in their life, as they got older. Since drugs where poorly understood, they were also widely used in products that where not age regulated, getting the senior citizens of today addicted to stronger drugs that eventually became illegal to use, earlier in their life. Many simple cough and cold medications had forms of drugs such as cocaine and heroin added in, which could have been a factor that causes the senior citizens to turn to drugs in the present
Physically, senior citizens endure more health problems than any other age, which usually results in the prescribing of various medications, which can cause addiction. As more and more people over sixty are being put into senior care home and hospitals, to help with various injuries or illnesses, more of these seniors are gaining easier access to physician prescribed drugs. Common pain killers such as Morphine, Vicodin, and Percocet are widely given to seniors despite them being both extremely potent …show more content…
In many cases, seniors suffer from general mental illnesses such as depression, or anxiety due to the loss of family and friends, and the stress of getting older, which are all factors that could lead to the use of legal or illegal drugs used to cope. Prescribed narcotics such as Ativan, Klonipin or Xanax are given to senior citizens to eliminate feelings of panic, or dejection, but these drugs also have street value. Sometimes though, it is not just medications that are directly prescribed to senior citizens. Controversial, stronger street drugs are also used to deal with these mental issues. Amphetamines like cocaine, and meth as well as marijuana and heroin are just as easily found as controlled medications, sometimes at a lower …show more content…
In modern times, children and adults alike are being taught that the decision to do drugs is an unwise and unhealthy one. Decades ago though, when the senior citizens of today where children growing up, drugs where not only poorly understood, but they were popularized and marketed to people. Not so much the potent street drugs or the wide variety of controlled medications that are available today, but rather drugs like cigarettes and alcohol, which are legal, but no less addictive. Also, it was not until recently, that the dangerous effects of these legal drugs, or any drugs, where actually known about or publicized. It is also in the use of these drugs, that more people got into harder or “class” drugs later on in their life, as they got older. Since drugs where poorly understood, they were also widely used in products that where not age regulated, getting the senior citizens of today addicted to stronger drugs that eventually became illegal to use, earlier in their life. Many simple cough and cold medications had forms of drugs such as cocaine and heroin added in, which could have been a factor that causes the senior citizens to turn to drugs in the present