TEENS ARE TURNING TO MEDICINES TO GET HIGH, STUDY SAYS

Overall Illicit Drug Use Down, but Officials Say Numbers Worrisome

WASHINGTON - Federal officials are concerned that teenagers are
abusing prescription medications and over-the-counter cold remedies
even as their overall illegal drug use continued a decade-long
decline in 2006, according to a government survey released Thursday.

While illegal drug use by teenagers has fallen 23 percent since 2001,
their use of prescription narcotics, tranquilizers and other
medicines remains at relatively high levels, government investigators said.

What's more, researchers for the first time asked whether teens were
using cough or cold medicines to get high and found reason for
concern there, too. Such over-the-counter medicines often contain the
cough suppressant dextromethorphan, which alters mood and
consciousness when consumed in high doses and can cause brain damage
or even death, officials said.

About one in 14 12th-graders, or 7 percent, said they had taken such
medicines to get high in the last year. Among eighth graders, the
figure was one in 25, about 4 percent.

"This is now an area of drug abuse that we need to pay more attention
to," said Lloyd Johnston, the University of Michigan researcher who
led the annual "Monitoring the Future" survey for the federal
government. "My guess is that young people do not understand the
dangers of abusing these drugs."

Prescription drugs also were a problem. After rising steadily since
2002, the percentage of 12th-graders who said they had used the
highly addictive painkiller OxyContin in the past year fell from 5.5
percent to 4.3 percent, a figure still considered unacceptably high
by officials. Use of another popular narcotic, Vicodin, more or less
has held steady since 2002, with 9.7 percent of 12th-graders, 7
percent of 10th-graders and 3 percent of eighth-graders saying they
had used it to get high within the last year.

"If there is one thing that every adult can do today to help protect
young people against prescription drugs," said John Walters, director
of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, "it is go to your
medicine cabinet, take those prescription drugs you are finished
using and throw them away. If you have teens in your house, remove
this hazard today."

Despite such concerns, Mr. Walters said the overall news from the
survey was good, showing continued long-term declines in teenagers'
use of marijuana and alcohol.

For instance, about 32 percent of high school seniors said they had
used marijuana in the last year, the lowest figure since about 31
percent said so in 1994. Regarding drinking, about 30 percent of
12th-graders said they had been drunk in the month prior to taking
the survey, down from a 15-year high of 34 percent in 1997. Among
eighth-graders, about 6 percent said they had been drunk in the last
month, compared with about 10 percent in 1996.

Cocaine use dipped slightly among eighth- and 10th-graders, with 2
percent and 3.2 percent, respectively, saying they had used the drug
in the past year. But it rose slightly among 12th-graders, up to 5.7
percent from 5.1 percent.

Mr. Walters warned that downward trends do not always endure. "We've
had in the past a tendency to take our eye off the ball," he said.
"We want to continue this decline, and that requires us to stay at it."

The annual government-funded survey, in its 32nd year, tapped the
experiences of 48,500 eighth-, 10th- and 12th-grade students in 410
public and private schools nationwide.