Drug Fact Sheets
These pages will teach you about the most commonly abused drugs on the market. Just click on a photo to learn more about a particular drug, or drug category. If you’re looking for a drug that you don’t see listed on this page, it’s likely listed within one of the categories of abused substances. It’s not hard to determine a drug’s category. Most drugs are either Central Nervous System Stimulants, Central Nervous System Depressants, Narcotics or Hallucinogens. If it’s widely abused, we’ve got it here. And if you don’t find what you’re looking for, make sure you let us know.
At any time, you can also download the Drug Category and Symptom Chart, to learn more about these drugs and the effects they produce. Visit the Detecting Drug Use Page to learn how to discover drug use, or the Diagnosing Drug Use Page to learn how to tell when someone is under the influence of a drug. We’ve included plenty of free tools and worksheets to make your experience as empowering as possible. Now go learn something!
Click on an icon to learn more.
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New Threats We are frequently advised of new drugs and new drug threats that haven’t yet received wide recognition by the parenting community. If it’s new and important, we’ll put it in this category. Typically, this new information will also be advertised to the MpoweredParent Community in the Recent Alerts section of the main website. Sign up for Facebook, Twitter or email alerts to make sure you’re in the loop.
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Alcohol No other threat is more grossly under-appreciated than that of underage drinking. By simply preventing your children from drinking, you dramatically lower their risk of death due to accidental injury, homicide, suicide, car crash, fall, fire, drowning, overdose, other violent crime, and sexually transmitted disease. Kids who don’t drink perform higher at school, obtain better jobs, express higher life satisfaction, and have a lower incidence of teen pregnancy, depression, and illicit drug use.
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Tobacco Nicotine is among the most powerfully addictive substances that a person can ingest. Each year, over 400,000 Americans die from tobacco related causes. Worldwide, smoking is cited as the leading preventable cause of death. Cancer, heart disease and emphysema are only a few of the fatal conditions caused by using tobacco. It is also a leading precursor to additional substance abuse and diversified addictions. More than half of the kids who start smoking by their mid teens, will eventually use illicit drugs.
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Marijuana Marijuana is the most frequently abused illicit drug in America. With over 290,526 emergency room visits in 2006, it is also one of the most destructive. Currently, approximately 30% of high school seniors report using marijuana recreationally. By the end of this year, over 150,000 Americans will enter detoxification and rehabilitation programs in an effort to break their addiction to marijuana. People who try marijuana are 104 times more likely to use cocaine than are people who never use marijuana.
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Inhalants / Huffing Inhalants are unique in that their use peaks at the remarkably young age of 14. Other drug use, including alcohol and tobacco use, peaks much later in life. When inhaled, inhalants can be more deadly than cocaine, claiming some young lives on the very first try. There are a staggering array of common household products that can be inhaled for the purpose of getting high, and the internet is full of “how-to” information that some kids find very enticing.
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Prescription Drugs Prescription drugs are the fastest growing drug threat facing American teens and college students. 47% of teenagers today report having at least one friend who abuses prescription medicines. They are readily available at most schools, can taken from the home, or purchased online. Our rates of prescription drug overdoses are many times greater today, than were the rates of crack cocaine overdoses at their height in the 80′s and 90′s. Click the icon to learn more.
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Cough Syrup 75% of DXM abusers are between the ages of 9 and 17 years old. It is a product which exists in nearly every American home, and can be easily purchased without any age or ID requirement. But with properties similar to Ketamine or PCP, it can be a powerful experimental drug for teens. Called “Robotripping”, DXM abuse is praised on the internet as being a safe recreational high. Yet with instructed doses being as much as 1500 ml or 30 pills, an unfortunate number of kids are dying from it.
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