The 2004 Partnership Attitude Tracking Survey, produced by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA), said prescription-drug misuse by teens now exceeds their use of Ecstasy, cocaine, crack, or LSD. "For the first time, our national study finds that today's teens are more likely to have abused a prescription painkiller to get high than they are to have experimented with a variety of illegal drugs," said PDFA Chairman Roy Bostock. "In other words, Generation Rx has arrived."

Vicodin was the most-commonly used drug, with illicit use reported by 18 percent of all teens. About 10 percent of teens said they had used OxyContin to get high, with about the same number reporting misuse of the ADD drugs Ritalin and Adderal. Many teens said they were able to get the drugs easily from the medicine closet at home or at a friend's house.

The PDFA also reported that marijuana use among survey participants has fallen from 42 percent in 1998 to 37 percent in 2004.

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