"Who knows what Percocet is?" said Agent Randy Lythgoe, of the Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force, polling a group of 70 students.

Hands shot up across the crowd as pre-teens easily identified the painkiller.

With Utah ranked first in the U.S. for nonmedical use of prescription drugs, Lythgoe says pills obtained by adults for depression and other ailments are increasingly falling into the hands of people who shouldn't have them: kids.

Now local police forces are trying to beef up the number of people dedicated to investigating prescription drug abuse and to change how the anti-drug message is presented in schools.

The state's Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice is pursuing $2.5 million in grant money that would provide Utah police with more staff specifically devoted to investigating prescription drug abuse and prescription fraud, said Richard Ziebarth, program manager for CCJJ.

A worrisome trend

Youths' familiarity with prescription drugs is worrisome for parents, educators, and investigators like Lythgoe, who says prescription drug abuse is reported in kids as young as elementary-school age and believes the trend is skyrocketing among 12- to 17-year-olds in Utah. A 2005 national study by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse found abuse among 12- to 17-year-olds spiked by 212 percent between 1992 and 2003. In 2003, nearly one in 10 of 2.3 million 12- to 17-year-olds surveyed reported abusing at least one prescription drug, the survey found.

Utah isn't immune to the national trend, Lythgoe said. That's why he and other agents are hitting classrooms across the state to educate children on the dangers of prescription drug abuse.

"Many of you are of the opinion that pills are a lot safer than street drugs," Lythgoe told students at Hooper Elementary.

"But these are very bad drugs," he said of such prescription medications as oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone. "You will move from pills to heroin to cocaine."

A decade ago, anti-drug presentations highlighted cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana as gateway drugs that could stray youngsters on the path to addiction. Now oxycodone, methadone and fentanyl - often nabbed from parents' medicine cabinets or discovered if prescribed for a sports injury or surgery - are recognized as kids' starter drugs of choice, Lythgoe said.

Abuse of prescription drugs has been reported as a step into heroin use, said Lythgoe. OxyContin sells on the street for $80 per 80-milligram pill. A small pile of heroin can be purchased for $10 and cash-strapped kids start to skip designer painkillers in favor of heroin's cheaper high, he said.

Schooling schoolchildren

Unlike conventional drug officers, prescription investigators work daytime hours to work with the pharmacies and clinics, he said.

Like Lythgoe, new prescription drug investigators would also spend a chunk of time at schools and clinics educating students, teachers and health care professionals about prescription drug abuse.

The message investigators bring to the classroom is invaluable, said Hooper Elementary teacher Mike Fazzio. His students gasped as Lythgoe showed them photos of drug abusers' rotting teeth and video of an Ogden father whose son died of an oxycodone overdose.

Fazzio said drug abuse education used to focus mainly on marijuana and alcohol, but now, as kids are introduced to pain medication at a younger age, he said it's essential to teach about the power of prescription drugs.

"This makes it real for them," said Fazzio of Lythgoe's lecture.

mrogers@sltrib.com

* Deaths from prescription drug abuse outpaced traffic deaths in 2006. The state Medical Examiner's Office reported that 476 deaths were attributed to prescription drugs and 274 were due to traffic accidents.

* The state led the nation in nonmedical use of prescription drugs with 6.5 percent of the population (about 162,500 people) taking prescription pain medication without a doctor's prescription, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services statistics from 2005.

* Utah drug task forces arrested 553 people on prescription drug abuse charges and seized 9,978 pills in 2006 and 2007, according to the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice.