Danger in Your Medicine Cabinet.(many drugs have addictive qualities)

More and more young women are getting high--and hooked--on legal drugs. We investigate this scary trend.

* After Sabrina Smith, [*] 25, was in a minor car accident last spring, the aching in her lower back caused her to toss and turn at night. Her doctor prescribed OxyContin to ease the pain. It did do that and more--it made her feel pleasantly buzzed, and the more she took, the better she felt. Within days, she was doubling her dosage, then quadrupling it. Soon, she had convinced three doctors to write her prescriptions. "I had never touched any drugs before then," she says. "I thought people used OxyContin all the time without any problem." But by fall, she had to check in to a rehab center to wean herself off the pills.

Like Sabrina, most people believe that prescription drugs are perfectly safe--after all, they're approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Armed with that feeling of protection, more young women are taking these legal concoctions recreationally--in larger doses than they should and often when they don't suffer from the conditions the drug is meant to treat. The three most commonly abused types of prescription drugs are painkillers, like OxyContin, which affect the brain areas related to pleasure; stimulants, which make you more alert and energetic; and sedatives, which relax you by slowing normal brain function. "Prescription-drug abuse is definitely on the rise," says Alan Leshner, Ph.D., of the National Institutes of Health.

What's more problematic is that all of these drugs are habit-forming. Like Sabrina, many women start taking pills for a legitimate reason, then build up a tolerance and get hooked. Addicts often resort to buying their drugs off the street or, more rarely, forging prescriptions. (Both practices are illegal.) "Addiction becomes an overpowering motivator. It hijacks your brain and your life," says Leshner. "People need to understand that a substance can be effective as a medication yet dangerous when misused." Here, Cosmo takes a look at three of the latest drugs that are turning unsuspecting young women into pharmaceutical junkies.

a deadly rush

Two years ago, Elizabeth, now 22, had never heard of OxyContin. Then her friend came across a stash of the painkiller in her grandfather's medicine cabinet and remembered having been told they could get you high. "We started taking them, and at first it felt great," says Elizabeth. "But after about a week, I had to take them just to get out of bed and feel normal."

First introduced on the market in 1995, OxyContin abuse has been spreading like wildfire. Its active ingredient is a synthetic form of morphine called oxycodone; the tablets have a time-release coating and are supposed to be used by people with chronic or severe pain. Recreational users often smash the tablets, then snort or inject them for a quicker buzz, a practice that can easily lead to a fatal overdose. Since 1996, emergency-room visits due to oxycodone misuse have doubled. Thirty-five people have died from OxyContin overdoses in Maine alone, earning the drug the nickname Oxycoffin.