BOSTON (Reuters) - When Paul Michaud's father died of cancer, the 16-year-old took OxyContin to ease his emotional pain. He first snorted the prescription painkiller and within weeks he was injecting it into his veins for a more powerful high before turning to heroin as a cheaper option. "It was the one drug that really pulled me. It took away everything," said Michaud, now 18, one of a new generation of American children getting high on and addicted to prescription drugs. [continues 581 words]
SINGAPORE -- His baggy pants stained by urine, his eyes shut, arms limp, legs wide open, the young Singaporean man lies passed out on a couch in a nightclub. He is, literally, the poster boy for a new generation of abusers of synthetic "club drugs" in a country known for aggressively enforcing some of the world's toughest drug laws. The man's image is appearing at Singapore's famously tidy bus stops and subway stations in framed glossy posters and in popular magazines. In another poster, an even younger ethnic Chinese man is nearly passed out in his own vomit next to a urinal. [continues 693 words]
