It has become a growing trend that involves teenagers misusing and abusing prescription drugs. This problem has in some cases grown to become an epidemic of sorts and causing thousands of deaths of teenagers before they even begin to live their lives. In this paper we look to understand why teenagers are abusing prescription drugs and how to prevent it from happening in the future. Through this process I plan to use the ecological model to identify factors at many different levels that may or may not influence this problem. The ecological model can be broken down into these constructs Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Institutional, Community, and Society. Each factor individually and sometimes together can affect if a teen chooses to abuse prescription drugs or not. These factors can also help identify ways at each level to prevent teens from abusing prescription drugs. A prescription drug is a medication that requires a prescription usually from a doctor to get while over the counter medications can be obtained without getting a prescription from a doctor. The abuse of a prescription drug is described as taking more of a prescription drug than you are recommended to, also taking a prescription drug that wasn’t prescribed to as well as taking a prescription drug for any other reason than directed by a doctor. In the US prescription drugs use have skyrocketed since 2003 prescription pain medications like Vicodin and OxyContin have been involved in more overdose deaths then heroin and cocaine combined. (Drugabuse.gov) Drug overdose death rates have been on a rise since 1992 with a 117% increase from 1999 to 2012. (CDC) in 2012 33,175(79.9%) of the 41,502 drug overdose deaths in the United States, 22,114 (53%) were related to pharmaceuticals. (Drugabuse.gov) Also in 2012, 33,175 0r 79% of the overdoses were unintentional. Of the 22,114 relating to pharmaceuticals 72% involved opioids and prescription pain killers and 30% involved benzodiazepines. Prescription drugs are also seen as a gateway drug to more illicit narcotics such as cocaine and heroin. Furthermore nearly 50% of teens who inject heroin surveyed in recent studies reported that they have abused prescription opioids in the past. The first level of the ecological model I will use to raise awareness and to try to prevent teenagers from abusing prescription drugs is the intrapersonal level. Intrapersonal prevention starts with the biological, physiological aspects of a teenager. These factors also include attitude knowledge, and beliefs as well as personality traits and personal history. This is a key factor among teens in prevention because it’s the foundation of their actions in determining if they want to abuse prescription drugs. Prevention at this level begins with a teen believes or their own experience such as being a victim of drug abuse in the past which would make them more susceptible to it in the future. Also a teen’s perception of how dangerous abusing prescription drugs truly are. If they know someone or been around someone who may have been negatively affected or may have even died they would be less likely to try prescription drugs. A possible intervention technique would be to understand a personâ