MARIJUANA USE UP AMONG CITY YOUTH

Kids growing up in Chicago and other cities watched heroin and crack
cocaine wreck the lives of adults in their neighborhoods and opted
for smoking pot in the 1990s.

But children in the suburbs didn't live through those life-and-death
experiences and grew up with a taste for much harder drugs, such as
Ecstasy.

These are some of the findings of Andrew Golub, a New York researcher
who has been exploring drug trends of the last decade.

A study to be released today shows that Chicago led the nation in
marijuana use among young adults who were arrested in the '90s. Most
of those were from the city, said Golub, a co-author of the study.

A whole other population of young adults in the suburbs abused club
drugs such as Ecstasy in the last decade, according to a separate
study Golub plans to publish this fall.

"Youths in wealthier enclaves have not been afforded the same lessons
yet," Golub said Friday.

The study was funded by the U.S. Justice Department and the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation.

It tracked young adults ages 18 to 20 who underwent urine tests for
drugs after they were arrested from 1987 through 1999.

Seventy-four percent of the Chicago youths tested positive for
marijuana in 1999--the highest level of the 23 cities included in the
study.

Among young adults in trouble with the law, pot smoking started to
escalate in Chicago in 1992 and steadily rose through 1997, when it
reached a relative plateau, the study showed.

"There is evidence to suggest that the incubation phase of the new
marijuana epidemic began with the youthful, inner-city, predominately
African-American hip-hop movement," Golub said.

The good news, according to the study, is that the theory that
smoking pot leads to abusing hard drugs may not be true.

"It would also be good news if the marijuana use were associated with
a rejection of crack and heroin due to their potentially devastating
consequences," the study said.

Chicago police spokesman Pat Camden confirmed that marijuana is the
drug of choice for 18- to 20-year-olds, but he said it's not uncommon
for young adults to use Ecstasy with pot.

Police seizures of marijuana have increased significantly in Chicago
in recent years, Camden said.

The study's findings suggest that a new approach is needed for
combatting drug abuse in Chicago, New York and elsewhere, Golub said.

"Drug control policies in this population should look more closely at
some of the underlying issues, such as poverty, lack of community and
family support, and lack of educational and career opportunities," he
said. "[But] these youths are not damaging themselves as much
physically and socially as previous generations of crack and heroin
users."