"Most of the time you already know": pharmaceutical information assembly by young adults on the internet.

This study examined the utilization of the Internet by young adults as a source of information for the misuse of prescription drugs. Collected during 2008-2009, the data presented here comes from semistructured interviews (N=62) conducted in a northwestern city of the United States through support from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Previous studies characterize young adults as particularly vulnerable to online prescription drug information that analysts portray as having a significant, invariably detrimental, impact on youth drug use behaviors. The results presented here suggest that young adults are more skeptical and information savvy than many substance abuse analysts acknowledge. In addition, knowledge and experiences generated from legitimate medical uses of pharmaceuticals influence individuals' information assessment and evaluation practices employed in the nonmedical misuse of prescription drugs.