The actor, who moved to Los Angeles in 1993 along with his identical twin brother Jason, says that his rise to fame led to a dangerous tendency to abuse drugs.

"I was treated like royalty," says London, 37. "It was hard for my brain to accept."

London wed actress Melissa Cunningham in September 2006, and the couple welcomed their son Lyrik, now 3, soon thereafter. But he says that prescription pill abuse contributed to the demise of his marriage and career, and jeopardized his relationship with his son.

"There were times I didn’t care if I died," he says. "I felt like I was losing everything."

Currently going through a divorce and facing significant financial woes, London went to a rehabilitation center in September 2009 to face his drug abuse, and to prove that he can be a good father to his son, with whom he currently has twice-weekly visitation.

"I’m learning it’s much easier to deal with life with a clear head," he says. "There are so many things I wish I could have done differently."
 

"These prescriptions are very recent, and it involves Oxycontin and we’re not talking just 40 pills, more than that," Brown said in an interview Friday with CNN Radio.

The announcement comes before the coroner has ruled on what killed Haim, the 1980s teen actor who struggled for decades with drug addiction.

Haim, 38, died early Wednesday after collapsing in the Los Angeles apartment he shared with his mother, authorities said.

"Corey Haim’s death is yet another tragedy linked to the growing problem of prescription-drug abuse," Brown said. "This problem is increasingly linked to criminal organizations, like the illegal and massive prescription-drug ring under investigation." Brown said the ring uses stolen doctor’s identities to order prescription-drug pads that are used to write counterfeit prescriptions.

"The doctor whose name is printed on the form is usually unaware that his or her identity has been stolen for this purpose," Brown said.

Haim got two powerful drugs from a pharmacy 11 days before his death, according to a source with knowledge of the transaction. His primary-care doctor did not know about the prescriptions and called the pharmacy two days later to find out what Haim had been given, the source said.

Brown’s announcement did not specify whether any of the prescription drugs found in Haim’s apartment after his death were illegally obtained.

Several prescription-drug bottles were taken from Haim’s apartment, Los Angeles County Deputy Coroner Ed Winter said Friday. Although the bottles indicated the drugs included Vicodin, Valium and Soma, no tests have been done to confirm what they are, he said.

Haim had a prescription for the muscle relaxer Soma and the narcotic pain reliever Norco filled at a pharmacy on February 26, a source with knowledge of the transaction said. Two days after Haim personally picked up the drugs, his primary-care doctor called the San Fernando Valley pharmacy to ask about the prescriptions, the source said.

The doctor said that "Haim was not feeling well" and he needed to know what drugs had been prescribed for the actor, the source said.

The source, who worked at the pharmacy, asked not to be identified because his employer had not authorized him to talk.

Haim’s manager, Mark Heaslip, and close friend Corey Feldman both said Haim began seeing an addiction specialist two weeks before his death.

Tiffany Shepis, who was engaged to be married to Haim last May, said on HLN’s "Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell" that he was taking large amounts of Valium and Vicodin during their yearlong relationship.

"You’re talking about a person that, at the time when I knew him, you know, was ingesting 40 some-odd pills a day," Shepis said.

Although the autopsy showed Haim’s heart was enlarged and he had fluid in his lungs, the coroner’s chief investigator said a drug overdose has not been ruled out as the cause of the actor’s death.

"You can have somebody with an enlarged heart and some other medical conditions, but you don’t know if the actual cause of death is from illegal substances, medication, or heart failure," Los Angeles County Deputy Coroner Ed Winter said Friday.

Heaslip said the enlarged heart was evidence that Haim’s death was not caused by a drug overdose, but Winter disputed that.

"There were some preliminary findings and we agreed to let the mother know what those were," Winter said. "It was explained to her that even though this is some preliminary findings that the doctor observed, there wouldn’t be a final cause of death until the final toxicology tests are back." The cause of death may not be determined for another six weeks, Winter said.

Feldman, a longtime friend and frequent co-star of Haim’s, asked Wednesday that people not "jump the gun" to conclude a drug overdose killed Haim.

Heaslip, manager to both Feldman and Haim, said Haim had seemed to be winning his battle against drug abuse in the weeks before his death.

Haim was "weaned down to literally zero medications" by an addiction specialist in the two weeks before his death, Heaslip said.

The doctor "put him on a new line of medications," Feldman said on CNN’s "Larry King Live" Wednesday.

Haim’s death came as his career was picking up, with Haim booking "movie after movie," Heaslip said. His latest film is set for release soon, he said.

Haim’s most famous role was in the 1987 movie "The Lost Boys," in which he appeared with Feldman. In later years, the two friends, who appeared in eight movies together, struggled with drug abuse and went their separate ways. They reunited for a reality show, "The Two Coreys," in 2007, but A&E Network canceled the program after slightly more than a year.

In a 2007 interview on CNN’s "Larry King Live," Haim and Feldman discussed their battles with drugs. Feldman told King that he had gotten clean, but it took Haim longer. Haim called himself "a chronic relapser for the rest of (his) life."

"I think I have an addiction to pretty much everything," he said. "I mean, I have to be very careful with myself as far as that goes, which is why I have a support group around me consistently."

Haim was born December 23, 1971, in Toronto, Ontario, according to a biography on his Web site. He made his first television appearance in 1982 on the Canadian series "The Edison Twins." His first film role was in the 1984 American movie "First Born."

Haim also won rave reviews for his title role in the 1986 film "Lucas." Film critic Roger Ebert said of him at the time, "If he continues to act this well, he will never become a half-forgotten child star, but will continue to grow into an important actor." After "The Lost Boys," Haim and Feldman appeared in "License to Drive" and "Dream a Little Dream."

Haim had submitted to various treatment programs time after time, but none ever instilled in him a true desire to get clean. "It didn’t work at the beginning because I was doing it for everyone else," he said. "’Mom, I love you, I’m going to get clean for you. Dad, I love you, man, gonna get clean for you, gonna go in here for you. I’ll do it for you, I’ll do it for you.’ Everyone but me."

What changed? Haim woke up one day — describing the timeline as "years ago" — and literally couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. "I know it’s an old, boring story, but it was a day where I looked in the mirror," he said. "It was strange, not because I think I’m God. I looked in the mirror and was like, ‘Man, you just don’t look good.’ And I didn’t feel well accompanied with it at all. [His loved ones said] ‘That’s what we were trying to tell you!’ ‘Right, but now I get it for me. Not for you, not for you and not for you. For me, I get it.’ "

"It wasn’t a good day," he added. "But it was the best day of my life, if you want to flip the script. It was an eye-opener." If early reports are to be believed, however, Haim eventually seemed to have relapsed. He died of an apparent drug overdose early Wednesday morning and an autopsy is planned.

In the summer of 2007, though, in the midst of a comeback that had him starring in A&E reality show "The Two Coreys," Haim spoke of his drug addictions as if they were strictly in the past. "I think when a person gets it with themselves finally, however they get it, that’s a great day for them, if they’re still alive," he said.

CNN.com reports that a criminal complaint filed earlier Monday alleged that Murray "did unlawfully, and without malice, kill Michael Joseph Jackson."

Murray turned himself in shortly before 4 p.m. at a branch courthouse near Los Angeles International Airport.

Members of Jackson’s family, including his parents, Joe and Katherine and three of his brothers, had already arrived at the courthouse when Murray turned himself in.Asked for his reaction to the charge, brother Jermaine Jackson said, "Not enough."

The involuntary manslaughter charge means that Murray caused Jackson’s death by acting "without due caution and circumspection." If convicted, Murray would face a maximum four-year prison sentence, according to prosecutors. Deputy District Attorney David Walgren will lead the prosecution.

Murray traveled to Los Angeles at the end of January from his home in Houston, Texas, in expectation of possible charges, his lawyer said. He used part of his time last week to visit the pop star’s resting place in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

Murray, a cardiologist, was hired as Jackson’s personal physician last spring as the singer prepared for comeback concerts in London, England.

The doctor told Los Angeles police that he was with Jackson at his $100,000-a-month rented Holmby Hills mansion through the early morning hours of June 25, 2009, in an effort to help the pop star fall asleep, according to a police affidavit.

He administered sleep aids, and after Jackson finally began sleeping in the late morning hours, Murray said, he left the bedroom for "about two minutes maximum," the affidavit says. "Upon his return, Murray noticed that Jackson was no longer breathing," it says.

The doctor stayed with Jackson as an ambulance rushed him to UCLA Medical Center.
Efforts at CPR proved fruitless, and Jackson was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m.
The Los Angeles County coroner ruled Jackson’s death a homicide, resulting from a combination of drugs, primarily propofol and lorazepam.

The coroner’s statement said Jackson died from "acute propofol intoxication," but there were "other conditions contributing to death: benzodiazepine effect." Lorazepam and two other drugs Murray said he used are benzodiazepines.

The doctor told investigators he had given Jackson three anti-anxiety drugs to help him sleep in the hours before he stopped breathing, a police affidavit said.
Murray had been treating Jackson for insomnia for six weeks at the time of the singer’s death. The doctor told investigators he gave Jackson 50 milligrams of propofol, the generic name for Diprivan, diluted with the anesthetic lidocaine every night via an intravenous drip.

The doctor told police he was worried that Jackson was becoming addicted to the drug and tried to wean him off it.

During the two nights before Jackson’s death, Murray said, he put together combinations of other drugs that succeeded in helping Jackson sleep.

After a year of steady abuse of Valium, Xanax, and Vicodin, Lyon realized that he needed to quit after being given morphine following a surgical procedure. Because of the tolerance he had built up to opiate painkillers, the morphine did nothing to make his pain go away. Lyon then quit the drugs for six months but later resumed his habit. After a friend intervened, he finally quit for good, but he still suffers from memory loss as a result of his addiction.

In Pill Head, Lyon explains that in the summer of 2003, he and his co-workers at Jane magazine began receiving emails offering Valium, Xanax, and Vicodin with “no prescription needed.” After repeatedly deleting them, Lyon started thinking about the emails more and more. His own physician refused to prescribe him a sleeping pill for a flight he took in the weeks following 9/11, so Lyon assumed it couldn’t really be that easy to obtain medications like these.

“Strictly in the name of journalistic curiosity,” Lyon convinced his editor to let him try to buy some of these pills online. He wrote, “I wanted to see if it was just a scam or if it really was that simple to get controlled substances without a doctor’s prescription.” The story was approved for the pop culture section of the magazine, and he was given a $600 drug budget.

Lyon explains that the Xanax and Valium were easy—he just had to fill out an online form explaining why he needed the drugs (he wrote that he had a fear of flying and had to travel often for work). Within 48 hours the drugs appeared on his desk, and he had spent $312.

For the Vicodin, Lyon was told that a doctor would call him for a consultation. He was also supposed to provide a phone number for his primary physician. Lyon gave a fake name for the doctor and his real work number. The “doctor” called the next morning, and Lyon said he just had his appendix removed and didn’t have insurance, and that the company’s Vicodin prices seemed affordable.

Then the “doctor” asked if he wanted 30, 60, or 90 pills. Lyon said 90, of course, and was charged $223. The drugs arrived the next day. Lyon wrote a quick article about how “ridiculously easy” it was for him to order the pills online and took the bottles home. Then his editor frantically called him to ask what he was going to do with the pills, worried that he would start using them.

“I spent the entire train ride out here imagining you face down on the floor somewhere,” she said. “I can just see the headlines now: ‘Magazine kills editor.’ It’s the last thing we need.”

Lyon promised her he would flush them down the toilet, but he didn’t. “I have a problem,” Lyon wrote. “When someone tells me not to do something I will immediately go out and do it.” When he hung up with his boss, he pulled out the bottles and stared at them.

“The labels were pathetically generic and looked like they’d been created on a typewriter,” he wrote. “The originating pharmacies were located in Florida, Arizona, and Colorado, and the addresses felt strangely cold: for some reason the phrase “Florida Drive” just screams unmarked storefront with the blinds closed shut, located in a partially deserted strip mall, an empty soda can rattling by, pushed by the wind.”

He studied the huge Vicodin bottle and the compacted horse pills inside, and then he took three. “That night I drifted in and out of sleep, but not in an unpleasant, restless way,
he wrote. “It was more like a constant waking dream, and when the alarm went off the next morning I still felt a little high, but not at all hungover. That was all it took to seal the deal—I’d discovered my perfect drug.”

Excerpts are from Pill Head: The Secret Life of a Painkiller Addict by Joshua Lyon. Copyright 2009 Joshua Lyon. Published by Hyperion. All Rights Reserved.

After surviving a severe car accident two years ago, Sharon underwent a series of surgeries to repair broken bones in her arms and torso. To reduce pain during her long recovery process, her doctor prescribed a moderate dose of the opioid painkiller oxycodone.

The medicine helped Sharon tremendously, but after the prescription expired, she noticed the pain returning. Medical tests showed no further need for surgery, and, because of oxycodone’s notoriety for being addictive, her doctor was hesitant to renew her prescription at the same dose. Instead, he wrote her a prescription for a reduced dose, planning on gradually weaning her off. Unfortunately, the pain did not subside. It seemed to Sharon like only the original dose would end her misery.

Increasingly desperate for relief and frustrated with her doctor’s refusal to authorize a higher dose, Sharon visited another physician who specialized in pain. She told him about her accident and how oxycodone had been the only real help to her in the past. However, when he asked if she was currently taking any medications, she said no. It seemed to her like an innocent lie—just a little omission of information that would finally get her the comfort she desired.

The doctor agreed to write her a prescription for her original dose of oxycodone, but over time, even that didn’t completely eliminate the pain. Before she knew it, Sharon was in another doctor’s office, telling the same “innocent” lie that had worked before. She found herself addicted to the drug, with multiple prescriptions from different doctors. She had been “doctor shopping” to feed the dependency and now, in addition to the physical and mental terrors of her addiction, Sharon was in legal trouble.

Stories like Sharon’s are not uncommon. Whenever someone visits multiple doctors in an attempt to receive different prescriptions for the same drug, that person is said to be doctor shopping. Since there are laws governing the number of prescriptions that a patient can have written and filled, pulling off the stunt requires illicit behavior on the part of the patient, doctor, or pharmacist. The patient must deceive the doctors and pharmacists into thinking they are each the only ones prescribing and distributing the drug, or the doctor (or pharmacist) may be complicit in accommodating the patient’s wishes.

Addiction is often a factor in cases of doctor shopping. When a person becomes physically tolerant to a particular drug, they seek higher doses for the same effect. But when the desired dose exceeds the limits of customary practice, the patient may resort to doctor shopping as a last-ditch means of satisfaction.

Prescription drugs that are commonly involved with doctor shopping include opiate painkillers (like OxyContin and Vicodin) and sedatives (like Xanax and Ambien).

In 2006, DEA Deputy Assistant Administrator Joseph Rannazzisi identified doctor shopping as a growing problem in the United States. He also described the issue of prescription drug abuse as an “epidemic.” In response to the growing concern surrounding prescription drug dependency, legislators are toughening up on doctor shopping, and it is now illegal in some states.

About Expiration Dates

The expiration date on medication means that it is safe to use (by the person for whom it was prescribed, and then only taken as prescribed) until the expiration date. This assumes, however, that the medicine is stored under the proper conditions of light, temperature and moisture. If it isn’t stored correctly, in direct sunlight, left in the glove compartment of your car, out in the freezing cold, etc., it will likely be ineffective before the expiration date.

Most medicines have expiration dates of two years after the drugs are manufactured.

What Happens When You Take Expired Medications

It depends on the medication, why you are taking it (for what condition), how long it’s been expired, and other factors. Experts disagree on just how much harm can occur from taking expired medications.

In some ways, taking expired medications is like eating expired or tainted food. Let’s take some examples. If you eat tainted seafood, you can become dangerously ill from toxins that develop in product that’s not kept sufficiently cooled. If you eat meat past its expiration date, you may become very sick. If you consume any food products after their expiration date, you are just taking a risk.

The same holds true for expired medications, only more so. Taking expired medicine may actually make your situation or condition worse. Say you were prescribed medicine for a condition but didn’t use it all. You found it in the back of your medicine cabinet and figured you could take it safely now. Wrong! It could prompt some worse symptoms than the reason you took it in the first place.

If you rely on certain medications to stay alive, such as medicine for heart conditions, taking expired drugs may mean that you’re not getting enough of the medicine to keep you alive. In other words, it may have lost its potency, and your very life could be at stake.

According to medical experts, tetracycline-type antibiotics and some seizure medications can cause serious toxicity if taken beyond the expiration date. Drugs in liquid form are even less stable than tablets, powders, capsules and pills. Other drugs are affected by age, including birth control pills which, if taken after their expiration date, may result in an unexpected pregnancy.

On the other hand, some anti-viral drugs used to prevent and treat influenza (like Symmetrel and Flumadine), may last for years past their expiration date, according to some dissenting reports. Stored under proper conditions, some drugs maintain 90 percent of their effectiveness for up to 5 years following expiration.

But who wants to, or is willing to, take such a high risk?

Expired Medications Particularly Harmful to Children

Every poison control center has countless stories of children getting their hands on prescription drugs the parents have thrown away after their expiration date. The children take the medicines and can become poisoned, suffer a fall, or have other serious injuries as a result.

What to Do With Expired Medication

It’s simple: get rid of them. But do so in the correct manner. First, take the medicine out of the original container. Next, mix the drug with some substance that’s undesirable (meaning no one will dig it out and try to take it), like kitty litter. Place the drug/undesirable mixture in a sealed bag or waterproof container. Then throw it out in the trash. You should also contact your local poison control center for any updates on proper prescription drug disposal in your area

Another suggestion is to contact your pharmacist. They may have information on pharmaceutical take-back locations for unused, unneeded or expired medications.

What If You Have Questions?

If you’re unsure whether or not it’s safe to take a prescribed medication past its expiration date, or if the expiration date is illegible, contact the physician that originally prescribed the medication. If that doctor isn’t available, contact your regular physician, describe the situation and the medication, and inquire whether you should take it or toss it.

Of course, if medicines are stored improperly, they will degrade faster. If you see signs of disintegration, or it develops an acidic smell, throw it out immediately.

Tips to Be Safe

1. Once a month, go through all your medications to check on the expiration dates. Toss out (or correctly dispose of) any that have expired.

2. Keep all medicines in a locked cabinet.

3. Never leave medicine out in the sunlight, heat or extreme cold.

4. Don’t take a chance on expired medications – ever.

5. Post your doctor’s phone number, or that of the hospital, where you can quickly get it if you need it.

Actor Heath Ledger, who gained notoriety for his roles in “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Dark Knight,” died at age 28 of an accidental overdose in January 2008. A New York City medical examiner said Ledger died from the abuse of prescription medications, which included six kinds of painkillers, sleeping pills, and anti-anxiety drugs. Xanax, Valium, and Ambien were found in his apartment.

Anna Nicole Smith, an American model, actress, and television personality, died at age 39 as a result of a prescription drug overdose. Just 5 months prior to her death, her 20-year-old son Daniel died suddenly three days after Smith gave birth to her daughter Dannielynn. An autopsy confirmed that Daniel died from a lethal combination of Zoloft, Lexapro, and methadone.

On February 8, 2007, Smith was found unresponsive at a hotel room in Hollywood, Florida. She was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital about an hour later. Toxicologists found that Smith died of combined drug intoxication, with the sleeping medication chloral hydrate being the main component. Four benzodiazepines (Klonopin, Ativan, Serax, and Valium) were found in her system, along with Benadryl and Topamax, an anticonvulsant that likely contributed to the sedative effect of the chloral hydrate and the benzodiazepines. In addition, 8 of the 11 drugs in her system were prescribed to her husband, Howard K. Stern, and two of them were prescribed to someone else.

Perhaps the most famous prescription drug death is that of Elvis Presley, known as the “King of Rock ‘n Roll.” He died on August 16, 1977, at the age of 42. An autopsy indicated that he died of cardiac arrhythmia, and that he had 14 drugs in his system when he died, including the painkillers morphine and Demerol, the antihistamine Chloropheniramine, codeine, Valium, the tranquilizer Placidyl, the sleeping pill Ethinamate, Quaaludes, and one other unidentified depressant. The year he died, he failed to appear at concerts or was impossible to understand, and eventually cancelled tours because he was unable to get out of bed. He gave a strong performance in Indianapolis on June 26, but was found on the bathroom floor by his fiancé the day before he was to leave on his next tour.

Presley had many health problems during his life, and it’s said that he took amphetamines regularly in the army. His former wife, Priscilla Presley, said she saw “many problems in Elvis’s life, all magnified by taking prescription drugs.” The singer allegedly spent at least $1 million a year during his latter years on drugs and doctors’ fees. In 1979, Presley’s private physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos, was charged with “indiscriminately prescribing 5,300 pills and vials for Elvis in the seven months before his death,” but was later acquitted. In 1995, his license was permanently revoked after it was found that he improperly dispensed drugs to several patients, including Jerry Lee Lewis.

Marilyn Monroe was found dead on August 5, 1962, at the young age of 36. The final years of her life were marked by depression and drug and alcohol abuse, and her death was ruled as “acute barbiturate poisoning” and listed as “probable suicide” by the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office.

Monroe’s psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, said that she frequently complained of insomnia and told him that she visited several doctors to obtain “an excessive variety of drugs.” The year before she died, her dependence on alcohol and prescription medications began to take a toll on her health, and she was often too ill to work. On August 2, Greenson called the LAPD to report that Monroe was dead at her home in Los Angeles. The sedatives chloral hydrate and Nembutal were found in her system. Reportedly, the dosages in her blood were high enough to kill more than ten people.

Now reports of Jackson’s prescription drug abuse are flooding the media. His former video producer said the pop star had been addicted to Demerol and other narcotic painkillers like OxyContin for more than 20 years. Marc Schaffel, who was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in Jackson’s 2005 child molestation trial, said that close associates of Jackson tried to stage an intervention regarding his addiction in 2003, but that it was derailed due to a world tour.

“Everybody around him knew about it,” Schaffel told ABCNews.com. “He didn’t advertise it to the world, but anybody in his inner circle knew. I was shocked, but I knew it was only a matter of time that something like this would happen,” Schaffel said. “I have said before, that if he continued using drugs at this rate, he’d be dead by the time he was 50.”

Schaffel said Jackson’s addiction to Demerol began as early as 1984 when Jackson’s hair caught fire while during filming of a Pepsi commercial and he suffered burns. He was later treated at the Betty Ford Clinic. In 2002, Jackson was ordered to undergo a medical examination after he failed to appear in court because Jackson said he had a spider bite. Schaffel said it wasn’t a spider bite and that instead, a needle had broken off in Jackson’s leg.

During Jackson’s 2005 child molestation trial, the judge ordered prosecutors to return hundreds of items that were not considered contraband—this included syringes, Demerol, and prescriptions for various antibiotics that were prescribed to other people.

Demerol is as addictive as morphine and can cause seizures and tremors. It is extremely dangerous when used in large doses or combined with alcohol, other opioids, or other drugs that depress the central nervous system. A well-known side effect of Demerol and other pain medications is respiratory depression, according to Sanjay Sethi, chief of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at University at Buffalo in New York.

“A large dose, especially if given intravenously, can act on the respiratory center of the brain, reduce respiratory drive, cause cessation of breathing, leading to cardiac arrest because of lack of oxygen,” Sethi told ABCNews.com. “Antidotes are available, but they have the best effect only when used prior to cardio-respiratory arrest.”

A senior law enforcement official also told ABC that Jackson was “heavily addicted” to Demerol and received “daily doses” of OxyContin. Jackson even wrote and performed a song called “Morphine” in 1997. It has also been widely reported that Jackson abused the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and the anti-depressant Zoloft in the months before his death.

Jackson’s family lawyer, Brian Oxman, compared the pop star’s death to that of Anna Nicole Smith, who died of a prescription drug overdose in 2007. “This family has been trying for months and months and months to take care of Michael Jackson,” said Oxman. “The people who have surrounded him have been enabling him.”

While Schaffel disagreed with this statement, saying that Jackson’s “regular doctors didn’t give him drugs” and that “90 percent of the people (around him) had nothing to do with the drug use,” Schaffel said that “pseudo doctors” provided Jackson with drugs that were often prescribed to others.

“When you’ve got that kind of money, you can get your drugs,” Schaffel said of Jackson. “We call them Dr. Feel Goods. We tried to intercept and block them, but when you have that kind of money, you can get them on your own.”

However, a lawyer for Dr. Conrad Murray—the singer’s private doctor who reportedly discovered Jackson not breathing and performed CPR until the paramedics arrived—denies that Murray prescribed or gave Jackson Demerol or OxyContin. “Not ever. Not that day,” he told the Associated Press.

Although two autopsies have been completed, the official cause of death could take weeks to be released.

The awful realization sinks in. Your teen has been stealing your prescription painkillers, central nervous system depressants, or stimulants. For what purpose, your mind wonders? Are they taking them to get high, to fit in, to feel less anxious, stressed, depressed? Is it to sleep better, get good grades, and be more focused? All the things you’ve read about prescription drugs and abuse flood your thoughts and you have to sit down. Maybe they’re selling these drugs to others. Maybe they’re going to trade them at those “pharm parties” you’ve heard about on the news.

You have the evidence. Now you have to do something. The question is what. Here are some suggestions.

Take Inventory

Before you confront your teen, take an inventory of every prescription medication you or your spouse, or anyone else in the household, take. Gather all the medication on a table and start making a list. You’ll need to include the name of the medication, for whom it was prescribed, amount, dosage, and for what purpose.

Next, compare the pills you’ve found to what you have in your inventory. You need to note what the pills are, and where you found them. If you have more than one teen and you’ve discovered pills for each of them, your problem just got bigger. But you’re not alone. Abuse of prescription drugs by young people is rapidly on the rise. Children as young as 12 years old are popping pain killers, depressants and stimulants to get high and/or feel numb. The Partnership for a Drug Free America’s 20th National Tracking Study on Teen Drug Abuse found that 1 in 5 teens (19 percent or 4.7 million) report abusing prescription medication at least once in their lives. In the past year, 1 in 10 teens (10 percent or 2.5 million) have abused a prescription pain reliever.

Don’t forget over-the-counter (OTC) medications like cough syrup and allergy medications containing epinephrine. The Partnership’s tracking study found that about 7 percent (or 1.7 million) teens abused OTC cough medicine in the past year.

Talk with the parents of your teens’ friends as well, and also other family members and friends of the family who take prescription medications (like an aunt, uncle, grandparents, etc.), and with whom your teens interact. Enlist their help in doing the same type of inventory.

Safely Discard Unused Medications

Undoubtedly you’ll find there are prescription drugs in your house that you no longer need. You’ve probably forgotten some of them are even there. Maybe you stopped taking them before the prescription ran out because you felt better, or felt you didn’t need them anymore. Whatever the reason, unless they’re medically necessary, and especially if they’re the kind you’ve found in your teen’s possession, you need to get rid of them.

How do you do this safely? Take all of the medications out of the bottles and place them in plastic bags or airtight containers. Then dump them in the trash. You can also contact your pharmacist and inquire about prescription take-back, or call your local poison control center to ask about where to dispose of them.

Lock Up Medications

For any remaining prescription medications, you’ll need to safeguard them by locking them up. This may seem like an extreme measure, but it really is necessary. When you remove easy access, you remove the temptation and the danger – at least from your own homes. Ask that your relatives, friends and the parents of your teens’ friends do the same. Although you can’t compel them to do so, simply by raising the issue with them, you’ll hopefully cause them to give the matter some serious consideration.

Enlist the Support of Your Spouse

If you are married, you need to discuss the matter with your spouse. Do so in a calm and nonjudgmental manner, since the last thing you want is to have your spouse unite with your teens against you. If you need more education on the dangers of prescription drug abuse, go online and research the various drugs that you’ve found, and the dangers. Print out what you find from sites like the National Institute on Drug Abuse (www.nida.nih.gov) and DrugAbuse (www.drugabuse.gov), and others. Do a Google search for prescription drug abuse, or the specific name of the drug. You’ll find plenty of material.

Once you discuss it with your spouse, you’re ready for the next step: confronting your teen.

Talk With Your Teen – The Earlier the Better

This isn’t something you can put off. Don’t wait for the weekend or next week or sometime after school is out. You need to deal with this matter right now. Consider that you very well may be saving the life of your teen. When you think about the dangers of mixing different kinds of prescription drugs – the kind you found among their things – or combining them with alcohol, you know the right thing to do is to put a stop to it.

Be prepared. It’s going to get rough.

Teens are notoriously private. They resent anyone telling them what to do, even their parents, whom they know love them. You’ll likely be subject to a storm of denial, anger, lies, half-truths, maybe tears, stomping out of the room – you get the idea. Just remain firm and keep on talking.

What should you say?

Give them the opportunity to explain what they’ve been doing with the drugs. Ask them if they’re feeling anxious, depressed, if something’s going wrong at school. Maybe they need to see a doctor for an underlying condition. You may need to schedule an appointment to have them checked out physically. Chances are, if you haven’t noticed the effects of prescription drug abuse, it hasn’t gone too far yet. If you have, and have passed it off as “just being a teenager,” then you really have had blinders on. You need to immediately get your teen checked out, and probably evaluated for prescription drug abuse. This may involve detoxification and prescription drug rehab

But, let’s go with the simple discussion of what’s going on first. You may hear that your teen feels it is okay to use prescription drugs that aren’t prescribed for them because they think they’re safe. After all, they’ve been prescribed by a doctor. This is usually mentioned by teens who are naïve or very young. They may also say that you take them, or have taken them, and nothing bad happened to you, so why can’t they? Explain calmly that prescription drugs taken for nonmedical purposes are dangerous, can be deadly, and is illegal. And prescription drugs that are abused are every bit as dangerous as illicit street drugs.

Ask your teenager point-blank if they’re selling or giving the drugs to their friends. They may not admit it, but if they haven’t come up with a reason for why they have the drugs in their possession, it’s likely they are exchanging drugs with friends. This could happen anywhere, at school, in the park, at the mall, at the “pharm parties,” anywhere. Prescription drugs are easily obtained (they just took them from your medicine cabinet), cheap to obtain (from the Internet without a prescription), and easy to carry around.

Share with your teen what you’ve learned about the risks of substance abuse. Let them know in no uncertain terms that abuse of prescription drugs is hazardous to their health. It’s not just a matter of overdosing, but mixing different drugs and alcohol can be deadly. Explain specific behavior or events your teen has engaged in that concern you. They have been putting themselves in harm’s way, and this sets a pattern that could develop into criminal behavior.

Set Stricter Limits

If you haven’t already set them, now’s the time to set stricter limits. No staying out on school nights past a certain time, unless there’s a special school activity. No extracurricular activity for a set period of time. Maybe you’ll require purse and bag checks on a regular basis. Whatever the rules, be sure to give guidance. Let your teen know there are consequences for any infractions of the limits you set. And be ready to enforce the new rules and restrictions

What If Your Teen Won’t Listen?

If you’re not getting through to your teen, enlist the help of an interventionist or counselor. If the situation is already out of hand, get your teen into detoxification and prescription drug rehab. Make sure that your teen receives treatment at a facility that has programs tailored to teens and young persons, not 55-year-olds.

Consider wilderness therapy. It’s thrilling, combines physical exertion, adventure, peer bonding and personal challenge. It also offers tremendous therapeutic value due to the unique aspect of the wilderness setting. This isn’t for everyone, and it is somewhat expensive. But it just may be the right approach for teens who may already be addicted to prescription medications.

Learn more about Teen Drug Abuse