LAKEWOOD RANCH — Dr. Lora Brown minced no words.

“You’ve got a huge problem here. It’s a huge problem in Bradenton, in Manatee County and in this high school. That’s why I’m here,” she said Tuesday.

Students at Lakewood Ranch High School were her audience, and her message was direct and imprinted on black wristbands distributed to them: “Wake up! Rx drugs kill.”

Brown, an interventional pain management specialist in Bradenton, who serves on the Governor’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Implementation and Oversight Task Force, described nothing less than an epidemic.

Almost 3,000 Floridians died from prescription drug abuse in 2009, and the death rate is up 16 percent this year, Brown said.

To illustrate the point she called seven students to the stage where they stood next to seven ambulance gurneys, reflecting the seven Floridians who die daily abusing prescription drugs.

Teenagers who abuse prescription drugs are more at-risk of becoming addicted because their brains are still developing, she said.

Manatee County was selected as one of five sites across the United States by the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America for National Drug Facts Weeks being observed Nov. 8-14.

The other locations are Chicago; Arlington, Va.; San Marcos, Calif.; and Sallisaw, Okla.

Drug addiction is a disease, Brown said, and it’s not unique to Lakewood Ranch High School. Every high school and every community across the country has similar problems.

Brown was peppered with questions from students, including what to do if someone they know is abusing prescribed medication.

“You confront them,” Brown said, and go to parents or teachers to get help.

It’s a similar approach that Brown is taking to educate other physicians about the problem.

She acknowledged that there are bad doctors who prescribe too freely, and that “pill mills” have put Florida on the national drug-abuse map.

Barbara Gentry, project director for the Manatee County Substance Abuse Coalition, said that the prescription abuse problem is very real in Manatee County, and that she has attended more funerals for students who overdosed than she cares to remember.

Shelby Sielaff and Alyssa Capawana, Lakewood Ranch juniors who served as co-hosts for Tuesday’s discussion about prescription drugs, said they have been attending community festivals and making “environmental scans” on some of the messages about drinking they send to young people. For instance, is alcohol being consumed in excess in public, and are servers checking the ID of consumers to see if they are old enough to purchase alcohol?

The profiles that Shelby and Alyssa are working up are all about “saving lives,” Gentry said.

Shelby said afterward that a measure of the effectiveness of Brown’s presentation was the lively student interaction.

“They asked a lot of questions,” she said.

Brown said she agreed to speak to students on short notice because she finds the problem of prescription drug abuse and the rise of pill mills so appalling.

James A. Jones Jr., East Manatee Editor, can be contacted at 745-7021.