TEEN SEX, DRUG USE LINKED IN REPORT

Teens who have sexually active friends face a significantly higher risk of
smoking, drinking and using drugs than do other youngsters, according to an
annual Columbia University teen substance-abuse survey released Thursday.

The survey found that teens, 12 to 17 years old, who said half or more of
their friends were sexually active were found to be 31 times likelier to
get drunk, 22 times likelier to try marijuana and more than five times as
likely to smoke cigarettes.

Advocates for liberalizing U.S. drug laws accused the writers of the report
- - which showed no causal connection between sexual activity and drug or
alcohol use - of sensationalizing typical teenage behavior to make a
stronger case against the use of marijuana and other drugs.

For the first time, the ninth annual survey by Columbia's National Center
on Addiction and Substance Abuse focused on the relationship between dating
behavior and tobacco, alcohol and illegal drug use.

Wilson Compton, a physician and division director at the National Institute
on Drug Abuse, said the links between sexual activity and drug use were
less obvious and more complicated than they might seem. Compton said new
research showed that risky drug use was more likely to be followed by risky
sexual activity than the other way around.

The report also showed that drugs had re-emerged as the No. 1 concern of
teens after sharing that place a year earlier with academic and social
pressures. Nearly half of all 12- to 17-year-olds said they could buy
marijuana within a day.

"There's been no progress in reducing the availability of marijuana," said
Joseph A. Califano Jr., the former secretary of Health, Education and
Welfare who is chairman and president of the national center.

Keith Stroup, executive director and founder of the National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the report was emblematic of the
misguided way in which social conservatives want to dictate the drug war.

"It's unrealistic and absurd to suggest that the goal is adolescents never
having sex, adolescents never experimenting with marijuana," Stroup said.
"It's about time we quit acting like this is shocking behavior."

The survey showed that of the 1,000 teens surveyed by phone, 38 percent
said they had friends who smoked marijuana, up from 32 percent last year.
In addition, 36 percent had friends who smoked cigarettes, up from 30
percent, and 48 percent had friends who drank regularly, compared with 44
percent.

The Columbia report found that teens who spent more than 25 hours a week
with a boyfriend or a girlfriend also were more likely to drink and use
illegal drugs. They were 2.5 times more likely to drink and 4.5 times more
likely to have tried marijuana.