I’m sure many people have seen the anti-drug commercial, where the teenage kid on lunch break describes all the different pills he’s accumulated from his parent’s medicine cabinet, well this message is now hitting closer to home. In Florida, youth prescription drug addiction is running rampantly and causing serious problems. The Jacksonville Police Department reported 200 arrests of youths in 2008 for prescription drug related crimes, while that figure has already reached at 157, so far, in 2009.

Many experts agree that the problem of youth prescription drug addiction stems from the ease of accessibility that many a youth has to prescription drugs. However, more must be done if Florida has real hopes of defeating the problem. Nonetheless, experts in affected localities, like Keba Baldwin who coordinates Drop Out Prevention and Safe Schools programs, agree the key is a joint community effort. In an interview recently published in Jbnews.com, Baldwin told reporters: “It’s just a community effort for us to protect our children, we’re all responsible and as long as we work together we have a common goal.”