End the R.I.P.

I'm a typical college student in that I enjoy spending some time each day on Facebook keeping up with friends and acquaintances. While most of what I see is light-hearted and fun, I have noticed that a certain three letters appear too much on my Facebook news feed: R.I.P. By themselves, they can be part of many different words with many different meanings, but together in that order they mean only one thing: Another death of someone my age. They are three letters that a 21-year-old should not see plastered all over an acquaintance's Facebook page at least once every few months. Knock on wood (or whatever other superstition you subscribe to), I have not had a close friend pass away. However, I regularly learn of the deaths of friends of friends, old classmates, and distant acquaintances. The number one cause of these deaths? Drugs, and more specifically, heroin.

Over a year has passed since I learned of the death of a young man I used to know. We weren't friends, but he was a grade ahead of me in school and we had math class together when I was in ninth grade and he was in tenth. He was a bright kid, popular, funny, a star athlete. I learned after his death that due to a sports injury, he had to have shoulder surgery during high school. To cope with the pain, he was prescribed some heavy-duty painkillers. I don't know all the details, but at some point he got hooked. He started heroin not long after when it was offered to him at a college party and soon became addicted to the deadly street drug. He struggled with the addiction for some time before his parents one day found him dead in his bed. I can't even imagine.

After learning of his death and intermittently the deaths of other people I once knew, I became interested in learning more about this drug taking so many young lives. One thing that stood out to me: Many, many kids struggling with heroin addiction or dead from heroin overdose experimented with prescription painkillers before starting heroin. Also, many were good kids and only started taking the painkillers because of a sports injury or surgery. After being exposed to painkillers, their addiction to heroin came much more easily.

About two weeks ago, I was experiencing some pretty intense chest pain. I'm young, so I knew I probably was not having a heart attack or anything serious, but the pain was rendering me unable to sleep, so I eventually visited a clinic. The PA spent some time listening to my breathing, looking in my nose and throat, and squeezing my chest, trying to discover the source of the pain. She even ordered a chest X-ray just to be safe. Ultimately, a specific cause was not found. I did, however, leave the clinic with a prescription for some moderately heavy-duty painkillers. I expected to receive maybe 4 or 5 pills to get me through the next couple days until whatever was going on with my chest was able to heal. I left the pharmacy that night with 20. As I expected, my chest pain went away within a few days so I only used a few of the pills. I had been prescribed at least 15 pills more than I needed.

You see, it seems that this is far from uncommon. Doctors are taught to overprescribe to avoid having to see the patient again for a refill. The unfortunate side effect of this practice is it leaves powerful painkillers lying around people's houses where risk-taking teens and young adults have free access. A portion of them will go on to become dependent on the pills and will do anything to have them. They will eventually realize that buying heroin on the street is much cheaper than pills and will make the switch. From there, their fate is sealed.

Please, please, please, guard your prescription painkillers and take unused extras to prescription pick-ups. Keep tabs on your friends and speak up if you notice changes in their behavior. Hang out with people who find ways to have fun without hard drugs. Encourage doctors to limit the prescribing of painkillers, especially to young people. Educate yourself about this serious issue that is killing our peers and together we can take steps toward ending the R.I.P. posts.