Rise in Teenage Opioid Deaths Highlights Desperate Need for Adolescent Drug Treatment

NEW YORK, Sept. 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- With a new federal report finding a nearly 20 percent rise in opioid-related deaths among teenagers, The Rosenthal Center for Addiction Studies today called for a massive expansion of drug treatment for adolescents in America and for renewed efforts by state and federal governments to contend with the impact of prescription pain killers, heroin and fentanyl among the nation's youth.

"The rise in teen exposure to opioids is particularly disturbing because of the vulnerability of these young people," said Mitchell S. Rosenthal, M.D., the President of the Rosenthal Center. "The onset of addiction is frequently in childhood, and drug use at this age can cast a shadow over the rest of a person's life. We must intervene now to make sure teens exposed to opioids today do not become tomorrow's fatality statistics."

During the course of the current opioid epidemic, the primary focus of government and the media has been on older Americans who make up the great preponderance of the epidemic's victims. Relatively little attention has been paid to the stark gap in treatment programs for adolescents that are often the key to freeing teens from the grip of addiction. 

"Teenagers have special treatment needs that often cannot be met by most adult treatment programs," Dr. Rosenthal added. "They need appropriate drug treatment that includes a behavioral component and the support of recovering peers who are leading healthy, drug-free lives. They need family involvement. And sometimes they need longer-term residential programs that are now few and far between."

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that after declining for seven years, teenage drug overdose deaths grew by 19 percent in 2015 from 2014, an indication that the opioid crisis is reaching a younger segment of the American population. The CDC found that 772 teens aged 15-19 died in 2015 from drug overdoses, compared to 658 the year before. This reverses a 26 percent fall in the rate of overdose deaths between 2007 and 2014.

Teen overdose deaths were linked to the growing use of both heroin and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. There was also a sharp 34 percent spike in deaths among teenage girls in the two years between 2013 and 2015, and a 15 percent increase for boys from 2014 to 2015.

Dr. Rosenthal said the increase in teenage overdoses suggests that young people now have easier access to deadly drugs as well as a growing interest in them, after many years in which they had largely stayed away from drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

These findings come at a time when there are drastically insufficient treatment resources dedicated to teenagers and adolescents. According to data from The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), only one in a dozen teenagers in need receives drug treatment. 

In addition, as drug use and overdoses rise, teen admissions to treatment facilities are going down. This reflects a continuing trend in the drug abuse treatment field that has long underserved adolescents. Although the overall number of all clients in treatment fell by 19 percent between 2005 and 2015, the number for teens plummeted by 56 percent over the same time period, according to the latest data from SAMHSA.

"What we need is a huge increase in adolescent treatment in the United States," Dr. Rosenthal said, "These are our most vulnerable citizens.  Drug treatment for teens should be a national priority."

About Mitchell S. Rosenthal, M.D.

Mitchell S. Rosenthal, M.D., the founder of Phoenix House, one of the nation's leading non-profit substance abuse treatment organizations, is president of the Rosenthal Center for Addiction Studies in New York City.

Dr. Rosenthal has served as a White House advisor on drug abuse, a special consultant to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, chairman of the New York State Advisory Council on Drug Abuse, and president of the American Association of Psychoanalytic Physicians. He is a lecturer in psychiatry at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.

About the Rosenthal Center for Addiction Studies

The Rosenthal Center was established within the Phoenix House Foundation in 2007 to advance clinical practice and contribute meaningfully to public policy. In 2015, Dr. Rosenthal resigned his role as part of the Foundation's leadership team to head a now independent Rosenthal Center.

SOURCE The Rosenthal Center for Addiction Studies