Sheriff Pope’s Message of the Week: March 24, 2023

In June of this year, the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office will be hosting presentations on the subject of “How teens abuse medicine” throughout Lyon County. These presentations will last approximately two hours. I have instructed the area Commanders (Mason Valley, Silver Springs, Dayton, and Fernley) to secure a space for these presentations.

As your Sheriff, I feel community events such as these are extremely important, and may help parents recognize signs that their teenager is abusing prescription drugs. I encourage as many as possible attend these events. Once the dates are finalized we will announce the date, time and location of the presentations in your community.

In surveys across the country, most teenagers admit they can obtain a number of different mind-altering prescription pills with relative ease. The most common answer where teenagers turn to find prescription medications is in their own homes. The left over, or unused portions of prescriptions are often left unattended and unmonitored in medicine cabinets, making it easy for teens to help themselves. According to the DEA 17.8% of high school students took a prescription drug without a doctor’s prescription one or more times in the past 12 months.

The most common type of prescription medication abused is opioids. These are medications that relieve pain such as Vicodin, OxyContin, or codeine. Abusing opioids can cause severe respiratory depression or death and can be extremely addictive. Frequent abuse of prescription drugs activate the brain’s reward center, and a person begins to develop physical dependence and addiction. After long term use the body and brain build a tolerance to the opioids. As a result, the desired effect of prescription drugs no longer satisfies the abusers needs and they turn to more potent sources of opioids, such as fentanyl and heroin. It is no coincidence that heroin has made an extreme comeback from its previous reign as the drug of choice in the 1980’s.

As your Sheriff I will support and announce these events using the Sheriff’s Office impressive social media audience.

In order to suppress the influx of illegal drugs that plague our communities, we need to be proactive at every level. Educating the community, especially parents of teenagers, on the dangers of abusing prescription drugs is just one step of the process.

I have attached a link to the DEA PDF “Prescription for Disaster How Teens Abuse Medicine”. As a parent myself, I strongly recommend Parents, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents to please take the time to read this pamphlet and have a face-to-face discussion with your teenagers regarding the dangers of abusing prescription medications. Their life, or the lives of others, may depend on it.

https://www.dea.gov/…/DEA_Prescription-For-Disaster…

Respectfully,

Sheriff Brad Pope