Bill Macfadyen

<p>As a Santa Barbara County deputy district attorney who works with young offenders, Von Nguyen knows what the community’s children are up to.</p>

<p>Prescribing controlled substances is a highly regulated process, especially as abuse and addiction become more prevalent, but oversight is fractured between agencies with the burden falling on local health-care providers.</p>

<p>The baby boom culture. Longer, but not necessarily healthier lifestyles. A general lack of information and communication. Each of these elements plays a role in the growing phenomenon that is the misuse of prescription drugs by the elderly.</p>

<p>Pharmacist Peter Caldwell jokes that his career path was set as an infant when his parents used a prescription cabinet for his bassinet.</p>

<p>This article was written by Noozhawk Intern Tim Fucci as part of Day 4 in Noozhawk’s 12-day, six-week special investigative series. Related links are below.</p>

<p>As Santa Barbara County confronts a growing challenge from drug abuse, fatal overdoses from prescription medications are creeping ever higher, forcing authorities to revise the ways they track the trends.</p>

<p>Santa Barbara Teen News Network aims to provide “accessible and community-based performing arts programs, dedicated to developing passion, communication and performing arts leadership in the youth of (Santa Barbara)."</p>

<p>In the past, the study of addiction has often been focused on substances — like heroin, marijuana and alcohol. But experts in the field now believe that addiction begins with the “reward circuitry” in the brain rather than the substances themselves.</p>

<p>Donna Genera says bartenders are therapists without degrees. As a former bartender and drug dealer herself, Genera’s work<a href="http://www.fullspectrumrecovery.com/&quot; title="Full Spectrum Recovery &amp; Counseling Services"></a> is informed by her years on the supply side of addiction.</p>

<p>Looking back, Rich Detty can’t say for sure whether his son, Cliff, was addicted to prescription medications. The drug abuse question and the true condition of his son’s mental illness still haunt him.</p>