Many parents are not aware that their teenage children abuse "study drugs," a new poll suggests.
In the poll, just 1 percent of parents said their teenage children had taken drugs such as Adderall or Ritalin without a prescription.
That is much lower than the percentage of teens that surveys suggest are using the drugs. For example, a 2012 study of high schoolers found that about 10 percent of sophomores and 12 percent of seniors said they had used the drugs without a prescription.
The new findings, from the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health, examined parents' awareness of the issue, surveying parents of U.S. children ages 13 to 17. About 11 percent of parents said their teens had been prescribed stimulant medication for ADHD.
Among parents of children who were not prescribed ADHD medications, 1 percent said their teens had used these drugs for study purposes. About 4 percent said they didn't know if their teen had abused these drugs, and 95 percent said their teens had never abused the drugs.
This disconnect between teen drug abuse and parents' awareness of drug abuse may be in part due to the fact that study drugs have more subtle effects than drugs such as heroin and cocaine, allowing teens to more easily hide their drug use, the researchers said.
Source: Live Science
http://www.livescience.com/34506-parents-awareness-teen-study-drugs.html