Stimulant therapy in childhood not associated with future illicit drug use
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Key takeaways:
- Young adults who took prescription stimulants as kids were no more likely to use illicit drugs than their peers.
- Findings may be “comforting” to parents of children with ADHD and other disorders.
Young adults who used prescription stimulants as children were not more likely than their peers to use illicit drugs later on, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
Past research has found that behaviors such as binge drinking, cigarette smoking and marijuana use at age 18 years were associated with increased odds of prescription drug misuse later in life.
“Prior research has shown that ADHD is associated with an increased risk for illicit drug use,” Sean Esteban McCabe, PhD, director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health at the University of Michigan, told Healio.
McCabe and colleagues previously found that stimulants such as those used to treat ADHD are misused at a rate exceeding 25% in some schools.
“There has been a 10-fold increase in stimulant-related overdose deaths, which is driven primarily by illicit stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine, calling into question the role that prescription stimulants might play in the initiation of illicit stimulants,” McCabe said. “We were interested in studying this association so we can identify and address drug use before major problems develop.”
The researchers studied a nationally representative sample of 5,034 high school seniors aged 17 and 18 years who responded to the centers annual Monitoring the Future study. Among them, 10.2% reported using stimulant therapy to treat ADHD, 14.6% reported prescription stimulant misuse only, and 75.2% reported neither, serving as controls.
The researchers followed up with participants every other year for 6 years to assess their risk for transitioning to cocaine or methamphetamine in young adulthood.
Young adults who reported stimulant therapy in their teens were no more likely than their peers to use illicit drugs as young adults, the researchers found. However, 20% of teens who misused prescription stimulants during high school began using cocaine or methamphetamine in young adulthood, and 34% of teens who misused prescription stimulants 10 or more times used cocaine or methamphetamine as young adults.
“The fact that we did not see an increased risk in teens who used stimulant therapy to treat their ADHD in their risk of later transitioning to cocaine or methamphetamine compared to individuals who did not take prescription stimulants for ADHD was encouraging,” McCabe said. “In contrast, teens who used prescription stimulants on their own without medical supervision had significantly greater likelihood of transitioning to later cocaine or methamphetamine during young adulthood.”
McCabe said this investigation “comes at an important time.”
“Our findings should be comforting to parents who have children taking stimulants for ADHD who worry that these medications may lead to illicit stimulants like cocaine or methamphetamine as their children enter young adulthood and become more independent,” McCabe said.
References:
McCabe SE, et al. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.22650.
Stimulant therapy for ADHD in teens doesn’t increase risk of cocaine or methamphetamine use later. https://news.umich.edu/stimulant-therapy-for-adhd-in-teens-doesnt-increase-risk-of-cocaine-or-methamphetamine-use-later/. Published July 11, 2023. Accessed July 11, 2023.
Collapse
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts