ILLEGAL DRUG USE BY TEENAGERS IS ON DECLINE, U.S. STUDY FINDS

WASHINGTON -- The percentage of teenagers using illegal drugs
continued a decade-long decline in 2006, but the illicit use of
prescription drugs remains worrying, according to a survey released
Thursday by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

"I think we're seeing a generation that has gotten wiser about
drugs," said Lloyd D. Johnston, the survey's principal investigator.
But more attention, Dr. Johnston said, should be paid to prescription
drug abuse.

The survey showed a decline of 23 percent since 2001 in the
percentage of students who said they had used "any illicit drug" in
the month before taking the survey, with 14.9 percent saying they had
used such drugs.

The 32nd annual report was based on a survey of almost 50,000
students in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades in more than 400 public
and private schools nationwide. The survey was financed by the
National Institute on Drug Abuse, and carried out by the University
of Michigan.

A question was added to the survey in 2002, asking students
specifically about the recreational use of Vicodin and OxyContin,
both narcotic drugs prescribed to treat pain. Since then, nonmedical
use of those drugs has increased slightly, although abuse of
OxyContin by eighth graders doubled to 2.6 percent in 2006, from 1.3
percent in 2002.

"We're not changing the rate that prescription medications are being
taken by young people," Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said.

This 2006 survey asked for the first time whether the students used
over-the-counter cough medicine.

John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, said the response was alarming, with 4.2 percent of
8th graders, 5.3 percent of 10th graders and 6.9 percent of 12th
graders saying they used nonprescription cough medicine recreationally.

Because most drug abuse is declining among teenagers, and
prescription drug abuse has remained stable, "prescription drug abuse
represents a larger part of the total problem," said Dr. Johnston,
who is program director at the Institute for Social Research at the
University of Michigan.

Mr. Walters said, "Based on the trends we've seen with prescription
drug abuse among teens, and corroborated by the results from this
report, it's clear we need to start developing messages for young
people about the dangers of misusing prescription drugs."

In 1998, three years before Mr. Walters became director, the drug
control policy office began the National Youth Anti-Drug Media
Campaign -- an effort to use multimedia messages to persuade
adolescents to stay drug free. That campaign has not produced an
advertisement warning about prescription drug abuse.

The survey released Thursday also suggested that the continuous
decline in daily smoking of cigarettes by 8th and 10th graders had
ended, although the rate, which peaked in the mid-1990's, did not increase.

"I hate to see that improvement stop, as it seems to be doing," Dr.
Johnston said.