Adolescents' motives for engaging in nonmedical prescription drug use is somewhat different than their reasons for using other drugs, such as marijuana. For some youth, nonmedical prescription drug use is an attempt to self-treat a medical condition, for others it is an effort to get high, and some youth misuse prescription drugs for both reasons. In this article, authors Sean Esteban McCabe and Carol Boyd review the research on adolescents' motives to engage in prescription drug abuse and discuss how these motives impact prevention efforts. (Contains 1 table.)