Some prescription drugs serve multiple purposes and can treat multiple conditions. This can be very beneficial--or can make it easier to abuse prescription drugs.

Methamphetamines

Methamphetamines are used for many different purposes. They are placed in prescription weight loss drugs as well as in ADD and ADHD medicines such as Ritalin. Prescription drugs containing methamphetamines, however, are the most widely abused drugs. So the same drug that is helping one person lose weight and someone else control hyperactivity is also being abused in a non-medical manner.

Aspirin

Aspirin is a well known pain reliever that is obtained either over the counter or with a prescription. Aspirin is most commonly used to treat pain, but is now being more commonly prescribed or recommended by doctors to take as a blood thinner to prevent heart attacks and strokes. In fact, “aspirin therapy” is often used to protect the heart. Aspirin therapy may also be used to help the health of diabetes sufferers.

Drug Abuse

Prescription medications can also have multiple uses in a negative way. For example, The American Family Physician claims that “Benzodiazepines…have multiple uses for polydrug addicts: they are used to enhance the euphoriant effects of opioids, to alleviate withdrawal or abstinence syndromes between "fixes," to temper cocaine highs, to augment the effects of alcohol (synergistically) or to ease withdrawal states.” Thus, some prescription drugs have multiple uses within the addicted population.

Prescription medications may have multiple uses that are beneficial, such as the methamphetamines in weight loss drugs and ADD/ADHD medications and the multiple uses of aspirin. They can also have multiple purposes to the addict. Again, understand what you are taking, and be honest with your doctor.