HEALTHY FAMILY
Youth Opioid Risks
What parents need to know
BY HEATHER M. ROSS
Y substance that leaves users more
prone to overdose.

“Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is
80 to 100 times more potent than
morphine. Because it is that much
more potent, it can more easily
lead to death,” Christo says.

Opioids are often prescribed
after surgery to reduce pain, or to
ease pain from certain health con-
ditions. The National Institute on
Drug Abuse notes that using opi-
oids early in life can adversely
affect judgement in kids and teens.

They might receive poor grades
or have bad relationships with
friends and family. They are also
in danger of risky behavior such as
having unprotected sex or driving
under the influence.

Who is at risk for
addiction? He shares with Washington FAMILY what
parents need to know about opioids.

What is an opioid and how does
it affect kids?
Opioids, also known as narcotics, include
powerful prescription pain relievers like oxy-
codone or fentanyl. Heroin is also an opioid.

Adolescents who progress to buying opi-
oids as a street drug might not realize the
prescription drugs they were used to are
laced with fentanyl—a far more dangerous
32 Washington FAMILY NOVEMBER 2022
The risk of developing a substance
abuse disorder is higher for people
who begin using drugs before adult-
hood, according to the Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMHSA), head-
quartered in Rockville.

According to Christo, there are
several contributing factors that
put some children more at risk
than others for developing an
addiction. “Consider family history of addiction,
personal history of addiction, history of
pre-adolescent sexual abuse, certain psy-
chological conditions like untreated
anxiety, depression, ADHD and schizophre-
nia,” he says.

Other known risk factors include poverty,
history of criminal activity, contact with
high-risk people and environments or stress-
ful circumstances.

DONALD_GRUENER / ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS
our child finds your pre-
scription in the medicine
cabinet, or maybe a doc-
tor prescribes them some pain pills
after a sports or dental surgery.

Even a friend might unknowingly
offer your child their own pills for
short-term relief, not knowing it
will birth a habit.

Many kids start using opioids in
the same ways, and some are more
at risk than others.

Dr. Paul Christo, director of the
Multidisciplinary Pain Fellowship
Program at Johns Hopkins Hos-
pital, is well acquainted with the
national opioid epidemic, a grow-
ing problem since the mid-1990s
when prescriptions of opioids for
pain management were a lot more
common, and exacerbated by a
rise of addiction disorders during
the pandemic.

According to Centers for Dis-
ease Control, over the years the
epidemic progressed in three
phases, first with deaths from
prescription opioids, then with
an increase in heroin and finally
with synthetic opioids and fentan-
yl—a more potent and dangerous
compound more likely to lead to
an overdose.

Though adolescents did not
make up a high percentage of users in 2015,
there were a significant number of them that
overdosed. Youth.gov reports that in that
year, more than 4,200 youth ages 15 to 24
died from a drug-related overdose and more
than half of these deaths were because of opi-
oid misuse.

It’s important to be proactive in fighting
the opioid problem by targeting youth, who
are most at risk of becoming addicted later if
they start early in life, Christo says.