Marijuana has long been known to teens as the “gateway drug.” But According to the most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health in 2009, nearly one-third of people aged 12 and over who used drugs for the first time began by abusing another drug: painkillers.

“I definitely see a trend,” Renee Heney, director of the Rockwood Drug-Free Coalition, said.

There has been an increase in prescription drug abuse, nationally, for the past several years Heney said.

Prescription drug abuse, Heney said, is not just a problem nationwide. The trend is surfacing in the St. Louis area as well.

According to a 2011 survey of St. Louis County sixth through twelfth graders, 10 percent reported using prescription drugs not prescribed to them in the past 30 days. Additionally, a 2011 survey of Rockwood high school students revealed that 16 percent believe prescription drug abuse is not very harmful.

Many people mistakenly believe that because the medications are prescribed by a doctor, they can’t be harmful, Heney said.

“If they’re prescribed, you think ‘they can’t be that bad for you’,” Heney said.

Heney said a huge part of the problem is people are beginning to realize there is a market for their unused prescription drugs.

“People think, ‘I’m too smart to abuse this, but I can sell it to someone else’,” Heney said.

Heney said prescription drugs are more readily available than ever since there are many different types on the market, and oftentimes much larger quanitites are prescribed than needed. In fact, the United States is a huge consumer of prescription painkillers, using 99 percent of the world’s hydrocodone and 83 percent of its oxycodone, according to a 2008 study by the International Narcotics Control Board.

“We’re one of the only countries in the world that allows pharmaceutical companies to advertise on television,” Heney said. “People are thinking they need things before diagnosis.”

Heney said the rise in prescription drugs by teens could be a sign of out-of-control stress levels amongst teens.

“Bulimia on the rise, binge drinking and prescription medication abuse on the rise, suicide on the rise,” Heney said. “If that’s not a sign of stress, I don’t know what is.”

Regardless of the causes, Heney said prescription drug abuse poses a very real threat to teens.

“Addiction is starting at a younger age, therefore deaths are occurring at other ages,” Heney said.

C. R. Kersten, executive director of the Teen Challenge Rehabilitation Center in St. Louis, said prescription drugs, like Oxycodone, can be just as addictive as “the narcotics you see on the streets,” and that they are on the rise.

“I do see a trend there,” Kersten said. “Presently, I would say a third of our clients that come in are here for prescription drugs.”

460 days ago (and counting), Jesse Bu, senior, began his journey of sobriety. For Bu, who began using drugs in sixth grade, it was a major life change.

“I smoked weed in sixth and seventh grade, then in eighth grade I got into pills,” Bu said. “That was when I was at Parkway Central. Then I transferred here, and I started getting into hallucinogens.”

When Bu was in eighth grade, he said people would hold “farm parties,” where all sorts of prescription medication were dumped in a big bowl and then taken randomly, which was when he began abusing prescription medicine.

“You just grab a handful,” Bu said. “They were all the rage.”

Bu had access to the prescription painkiller hydrocodone because he tore his ACL, and he said other people had access to their parents’ medications, including Vicodin.

“Somebody will have some kind of meds somewhere,” Bu said. “You just go raiding medicine cabinets.”

Bu said the farm parties were not fun. Eventually, he said his drug use began to escalate beyond just recreation.

“At first it seemed like it was all fun and games, my life seemed pretty decent on paper,” Bu said. “Then it got the point where I was drinking and getting high by myself. I had nothing going for me anymore.”

Bu’s relationship with his family became strained, as he began stealing from them to finance his habits.

“I stole thousands of dollars from them,” Bu said. “I sold my dad’s laptop, I sold my brother’s three iPods. It’s such an expensive habit that you do those kind of things for money.”

Bu said he didn’t try to hide his drug use from his parents, but they weren’t sure what to do about it.

“I started punching holes in the wall, I was not social anymore,” Bu said. “That’s when [my mom] knew something was up.”

JJ Meyer, Bu’s mother, said it was the “little things” that alerted her to Bu’s problem.

“He was lying,” Meyer said. “He wasn’t where he was supposed to be.”

Bu’s mother took him to multiple rehabilitation facilities, but her attempts to get Bu to stop using were unsuccessful.

“We waited and waited for him to be ready,” Meyer said.

After all this, Bu said he began to realize he had hit rock bottom, and realized he could die from the drugs he was using.

Bu entered Crossroads Rehabilitation Facility in Chesterfield by his own free will, and began the process of getting sober.

“The very first time it was bad and it sucked,” Bu said. “They always say the first 30 days is going to suck, and you’re going to hate your life.”

After making it through the first 30 days of sobriety, Bu received a monkey fist necklace from Crossroads to symbolize his commitment to sobriety.

Since getting sober, Bu said his life has changed “absolutely 100 percent.”

“Everything I really think about is different,” Bu said. “Now I have all this cool stuff, I have real friends and a cool rehab. It really changes your perspective.”

Bu has had the chance to make amends with his family through something called S.O. at the end of the outpatient program at Crossroads, Bu said.

Meyer said the hardest part about Bu’s addiction was the dishonesty.

“We had a hard time trusting the things he said,” Meyer said.

But Meyer said since Bu has been sober, her relationship with Bu has been “totally different.”

“We have a whole set of language now that we can relate to each other,” Meyer said.

Bu agreed that the experience changed his relationship with his family.

“A lot of people suck with their families,” Bu said. “I made enough hell that they didn’t want me to live there, and now we hug.”

Bu said the advice he would give to anyone currently struggling with addiction was to come to Crossroads.

“I doubt anyone’s going to do it on their own unless you truly hit rock bottom,” Bu said.

Meyer said the recovery has been a family process.

“It’s something that the whole family has to work through,” Meyer said. “It’s not a defect of character.”

Addiction is more of a mental obstacle to defeat as opposed to a physical one, Bu said, and he is not sure he believes in physical addiction.

“If you want to get sober, it’s really not that bad getting sober,” Bu said.