DRUG USE BY TEENS DROPS

Study finds overall decline, but painkillers' popularity is constant
WASHINGTON (AP) - Illicit drug use by teens continued to gradually
decline overall this year, but the use of prescription painkillers
remains popular among young people, according to a federally financed
study released Tuesday at the White House.

The survey, by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social
Research, looked at the behavior of 8th, 10th and 12th graders
nationwide. The study, in its 33rd year, found that overall drug use
is falling, thanks to a drop in the popularity of marijuana and
methamphetamines.

The drugs most responsible for this year's decline in illicit drug
use are marijuana and various stimulants, including amphetamines,
methamphetamine and crystal methamphetamine.

At least one in every 20 high school seniors has at least tried
OxyContin, a powerful narcotic drug, in the past year, the study
said. The popularity of the painkiller Vicodin also remained
constant. The percentage of students using Vicodin was 2.7 percent,
7.2 percent and 9.6 percent in 8th, 10th and 12th grades, respectively.

Marijuana still remains the most widely used of all the illicit drugs.

Cocaine was the one stimulant that did not show a decline this year.

The study tracked a fairly sharp increase in the use of anabolic
steroids by male teens in the late 1990s, 2000, 2001 and 2002. Since
those peak years, the annual prevalence rate has dropped by more than
half among the 8th and 10th grade males - to 1.1 percent and 1.7
percent, respectively - and by 40 percent among 12th-grade males to
2.3 percent this year.

"The cumulative declines since recent peak levels of drug involvement
in the mid-1990s are quite substantial especially among the youngest
students," said Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator for the
study, which was financed by the National Institute on Drug Use. It
surveyed 50,000 teens.

"The most encouraging statistic relates to the use of
methamphetamine, which has plummeted by an impressive 64 percent
since 2001," President Bush said.

The study also reported an increase in the use of ecstasy. Ecstasy
use among teens dropped dramatically in the early 2000s, as concern
about the consequences of use grew. However, the proportion of
students seeing great risk in using this drug has been in decline for
the past two or three years at all three grade levels, and use has
begun to increase, at least in the upper grades.