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No Exceptions airs Thursday, August 23rd at 7:00 p.m.

Over one in ten (14%) New Mexico youth use painkillers to get high.  New Mexico has the highest drug overdose rate in the US, 40% caused by prescription drugs. 

No Exceptions is part of a comprehensive media campaign to help parents, educators, and middle and high school students throughout New Mexico understand the dangers of opioid use (Oxycontin, Percocet, Vicodin) --and particularly heroin--and how to help stop its use before it starts. 

No Exceptions explores how anyone and everyone is susceptible to opioid addiction.  For many of the youth in the documentary, it started with an injury or a visit to the dentist and opioids were prescribed for the pain.  And then, the young person fell in love.  "It really makes you feel like you can do anything.  You're the king of the world..." says Thomas Griffin who is now in recovery.  But as the receptors in the brain change, very soon, the person  becomes dependent on the drug just to function.

The documentary includes frightening information about both the increase in painkiller abuse by adolescents and the increase in the prescriptions being written for those drugs.  It is reported that in 2010, pharmacies dispensed enough oxycodone and hydrocodone to give 40 5-mg Percocets and 24 5-mg Vicodins to every person in the US. It is estimated that 70% of those who use prescription medications for non-medical reasons get them from friends and family.  No Exceptions highlights the dangerous steps involved in beginning illegal drug use, the signs associated with that, and ways to help stop it. 

No Exceptions will broadcast Thursday, August 23rd at 7:00 p.m. on KENW-TV.

http://www.christopherproductions.org/comingup.html