Prescription Pain Relievers:
Pain is, essentially, an electrical signal communicating along a neural pathway between the affected nerves and the area of the brain that senses pain. Most pain medications function by interrupting this signal in some way.
When pain medication is taken when no electrical signal is present (there is no pain or injury), the drug follows a different pathway, leading to the area of the brain that deals with pleasurable sensations. This is why people with chronic pain can regularly take high levels of pain medication without experiencing the euphoria that occurs in people who abuse the same drug.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse's (NIDA) 2004 "Monitoring The Future" survey, nearly 15% of high school seniors reported using drugs containing the opiates hydrocodone (the pain relieving ingredient in Lortab) and oxycodone (the pain relieving ingredient in Percocet) without a prescription within the past year.
Between 1994 and 2001, the number of prescriptions for drugs containing hydrocodone and oxycodone more than doubled. Some of this increase can be linked to better diagnostic practices (administering the drugs to those who need them), "it would be naïve not to also consider the contribution of market forces in the emergence of these trends," claims Nora D. Volkow, MD, the director of NIDA.