TEEN DRUG SURVEY: HEROIN, ECSTASY USE UP; SMOKING DOWN

WASHINGTON, D.C. Teenage drug abuse held steady in 2000, the fourth
successive year it has either fallen or stayed the same, the federal
government said Thursday. Smoking decreased significantly, but use of the
club drug ecstasy climbed for the second year in a row.

The annual "Monitoring the Future" survey, a study of teen drug, alcohol
and tobacco use, had mostly good news, with drops among 8th, 10th and 12th
graders. But it also found the number of high school seniors using heroin
hit its highest point since the survey began in 1975, and more 10th graders
are using steroids.

The survey of 45,000 students in 435 randomly chosen schools nationwide
found that use of cocaine and hallucinogens such as LSD fell, with
marijuana use unchanged from 1999.

The results were released by Health and Human Services Secretary Donna
Shalala and Barry McCaffrey, the White House drug policy director.

The survey also looked at specific drugs and found that 36.5 percent of
seniors had used marijuana in the past year.

For 10th graders, it was 32.2 percent; for 8th graders, 15.6 percent. Those
figures were all steady from 1999.