SIGNS OF DRUG ABUSE...

Secrecy
If your teenager’s social patterns become increasingly mysterious, start asking questions. Be tactful in the way you ask questions as teen drug users may become aggressive when interrogated.

Social circles
A teenager’s friends may change dramatically after starting to consume drugs. Take action if you child’s social patterns look suspicious.

Slang and Code
Teenagers using drugs often discuss their drug use under their parents’ nose - in slang or code language! Do some research to gain clarity if your child speaks to friends using ‘strange’ words that you don’t understand.

Losing Focus
Since the use of drugs kills concentration in a teenager’s brain, it is likely to cause a decline in academic performance. Also be mindful if your child’s participation in extra-mural activities decreases and avoids family gatherings.

Pharming is slang for the over-consumption of prescription medication with the intended purpose of getting high off it as though it were narcotic or illegal drugs. It is a dangerous trend that is sweeping through youth circles around the world. The problem with pharming is that it is difficult to fight because there simply are no illegal substances to confiscate. Young people get high on normal pills and over-the-counter medication found in many homes and pharmacies.

“Apart from the obvious, narcotic and prescription drug addictions are the same. All addictions are characterised by two features - a mental obsession and a physical compulsion and these have dire consequences if left untreated,” warns Gareth Carter, a consultant at We Do Recover, a drug rehabilitation organization. 

The habit has developed to such an extent that pharming has become a social drug and users speak in codes so that they can continue their habit undetected by their parents. Young people who take part in pharming often have pharm parties where they take high doses of medication to get high. What makes this habit even more dangerous is the range of combinations they take.