ILLEGAL DRUG USE AMONG TEENAGERS CONTINUES TO FALL

Prescription Abuse Persists, Survey Finds

Federal officials are concerned that teenagers are abusing
prescription medications and over-the-counter cold remedies even as
their use of illegal drugs has generally declined over the past five
years, according to a government survey released yesterday.

Illegal drug use by teenagers has fallen 23 percent since 2001, but
their use of prescription narcotics, tranquilizers and other medicines
remains "relatively high," government investigators said.

For the first time researchers asked whether teenagers were using
nonprescription cough or cold medicines to get high and found reason
for concern. 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 1 in 14 12th-graders, or 7 percent, said they had taken such
medicines to get high in the past year. Among eighth-graders, the
figure was 1 in 25, or about 4 percent.

"This is now an area of drug abuse that we need to pay more attention
to," said Lloyd D. Johnston, the University of Michigan researcher who
led the annual "Monitoring the Future" survey, now in its 32nd year.
"My guess is that young people do not understand the dangers of
abusing these drugs."

The annual government-funded survey reached 48,460 students in the
eighth, 10th and 12th grades in 410 public and private schools nationwide.

Prescription-drug abuse remained a persistent problem, officials said.
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, about the same level
as four years ago. Use of Vicodin, another popular narcotic, more or
less has held steady since 2002, with 10 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 past year.

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

Overall, the survey shows a continued long-term decline in teenagers'
use of alcohol and illicit drugs such as marijuana, the most widely
used illicit substance. The reduction occurred while federal funding
for anti-drug advertising fell annually, from $185 million when
President Bush took office in 2001 to $100 million in 2006. However,
the past year's declines in drug and alcohol use were "relatively
small," the report said.

"In many ways, this was a year of modest changes, but nearly all of it
in the right direction," Johnston said.

For instance, about 32 percent of high school seniors and 25 percent
of 10th-graders said they had used marijuana in the past year, down
from 34 percent and 27 percent, respectively, in 2005. Among
eighth-graders the figure held steady at about 12 percent. In 2000,
the comparable figures were 37 percent for seniors, 32 percent for
sophomores and 16 percent for eighth-graders.

In 2006, about 30 percent of 12th-graders said they had been drunk in
the month before taking the survey, the same as in 2005. That compared
with about 32 percent in 2000 and 31 percent in 1996.

Cocaine use dipped slightly among eighth- and 10th-graders in 2006,
with 2 percent and 3 percent, respectively, saying they had used the
drug in the past year. But it rose slightly among 12th-graders, to 6
percent from 5 percent. In 2000, by comparison, 5 percent of seniors
reported using the drug in the past year, as did 4 percent of
sophomores and 3 percent of eighth-graders.

Critics noted that teenagers' use of marijuana, cocaine and other
illicit drugs remains higher today than it was 15 years ago. In 2006,
37 percent of high school seniors said they had used an illicit drug
in the past year. In 1991, 29 percent said so.

"This isn't progress," said Bruce Mirken, a spokesman for the
Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group that wants marijuana to be
regulated and taxed the way alcohol is. "The truth is that our
policies don't work."

Walters warned that favorable trends could turn around.

"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. If we fail to send anti-drug messages across multiple contexts
with young people -- especially given the contrary drumbeat that still
appears in popular culture and on the Internet -- we risk losing our
progress."