NATCHEZ &045; After years counseling drug addicts, you’d think Carolene Britt would not surprised by anything. But you’d be wrong.

Just the other day, Britt heard of the latest trend in teenage drug use, one she said sent chills up her spine. &uot;They’ll go to these parties and they’ll fill a punch bowl with drugs they’ve stolen from their parents’ medicine cabinets,&uot; Britt said.

&uot;They’ll mix them together and they’ll each take a handful of pills out of the bowl and take them,&uot; she said. &uot;Then Š they’ll sit around and see what happens.&uot;

No wonder, then, that Britt and other participants in a hearing held Tuesday said illegal drug use in the Miss-Lou, including abuse of prescription drugs, is an epidemic that must be curbed through education and prevention.

The problem isn’t just Adams County’s. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about 12.8 million Americans use illegal drugs. But medical, treatment and law enforcement professionals spoke of local people who have ruined health and relationships, gone to prison or died due to drug habits.

The Mississippi Delta State Rural Development Network, initiated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, held the forum on drug and alcohol abuse as part of its effort to identify health concerns in states along the Mississippi River.

Once the top concerns are compiled, the local network group will compile statistics on the problems and work out possible solutions. Armed with statistics and solutions, the group will be ready to seek funding for such programs, hearing coordinator Tracy Collins said.

And &uot;armed&uot; may be the right word, for those who spoke at Tuesday’s hearing spoke of curbing drug abuse as a battle.

While street drugs like methamphetamines and crack cocaine are still popular locally, Deputy Karl Pree of the Narcotics Task Force said the abuse and illegal transfer of prescription drugs has become a major problem.

&uot;It’s an insidious problem that has reached epidemic proportions,&uot; Pree said.

The up-and-coming drug of choice is promethazine with codine, a cough syrup abusers will often mix with a soft drink.

The abuser will have a child’s car seat in the back seat, and &uot;they’ll suck (the drug) from a baby bottle as they’re riding along. And you come along, they’ll throw it in the back seat&uot; into the child seat, Pree said.

Promethazine, Lortabs and oxycontin are three of the most popular prescription drugs sold on the street, although many different types of pain relievers, tranquilizers and stimulants are abused, he said.

These drugs aren’t replacing street drugs, Pree said. Instead, people are choosing prescription drugs because they are drugs of convenience.

For example, some abusers offer to take elderly people to doctor’s appointments, then steal a few pills from each person’s bottle without anyone being the wiser.

Although Michael Winn, owner of Winn’s Pharmacy, said he sees spurts of forged prescriptions occasionally, most prescriptions for controlled substances are legitimate.

People will go to several different doctors for prescriptions and find out by word of mouth which doctors tend to prescribe controlled substances more often. Some will use several different pharmacies.

The key to fighting abuse is to ask customers seeking frequent refills why they need the medicine. Then, if necessary, the doctor is called. Finally, a pharmacist can often tell from insurance information if a customer is &uot;pharmacy shopping,&uot; Winn said.

Prescription drug abuse isn’t just a potential tragedy for the abuser, but for others, such as cancer patient in need of pain medication, who might really benefit from the drug.

&uot;Some doctors have basically stopped writing prescriptions for oxycontin,&uot; Winn said. &uot;When you can’t give the best medication to the patients who really need it, Š the patient is the one who suffers.&uot;

Although Britt said she has seen adults go to desperate measures to feed their drug habits, adults aren’t the only ones abusing drugs. In fact, Britt said that over the course of her career, she has seen clients as young as 9 years old.

There is hope, but the best chance of curbing drug abuse comes when parents or guardians take common-sense steps to intervene early.

Those steps include keeping close track of what kind of people their children are with, what hours they keep and in what activities they’re involved.

&uot;And don’t be afraid to look in their sock drawer and around their room,&uot; Britt said. &uot;Some kids will use drugs in their own rooms at home.&uot;

However, local therapist Joseph Swoveland said that many times, parents are a large part of the

problem. Some parents, he said, are reluctant to set consequences for their children when it comes to drug and alcohol use.

&uot;They won’t stop until there have been enough consequences,&uot; he said. &uot;There are parents that will buy alcohol and drugs for their children.&uot;

Sometimes, parents have a drug or alcohol problem themselves. &uot;Natchez is very much a party town,&uot; Britt said. &uot;And some parents are in denial.&uot;

Still, since it is so hard to pry a person away from drugs once he’s addicted, catching youth early with drug education and prevention is the key &045; and the network will flesh out more specific solutions in the foreseeable future, Collins said.