DRUG USE BY TEENS DECLINING, GOVERNMENT REPORTS

WASHINGTON -- The number of American teenagers using illegal drugs fell
markedly over the past two years, the first noteworthy decline in more than
a decade, according to government data released Friday.

The percentage of high school students who reported they'd used an illicit
drug in the past month fell to 17.3 percent this year, down from 19.4
percent in 2001, according to the comprehensive "Monitoring the Future"
survey. That translates into 400,000 fewer high school students using drugs.

Although they cannot be certain, Bush administration officials attributed
the decline to more aggressive and targeted anti-drug advertising,
additional money for treatment and a drop in supply caused by law
enforcement crackdowns.

"This survey shows that when we push back against the drug problem, it gets
smaller," said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy. "Fewer teens are using drugs because of the deliberate
and serious messages they have received about the dangers of drugs."

Other analysts cautioned that drug use is cyclic and that the survey may
understate the problem because it relies on young people to report their
own illegal behavior. And although President Bush has increased funding for
addiction treatment, he has cut spending for prevention programs.

"I'm pleased there is a drop, but two years does not make a trend," said
Herbert Kleber, professor of psychiatry and director of the division on
substance abuse at Columbia University. "I would like to see the shape of
the curve over the next couple years to see whether this is a blip."

Since researchers began surveying 8th, 10th and 12th graders in 1975, teen
drug use has followed a roller coaster path. After climbing in the late
1970s and early 1980s, usage slowly fell to 10.5 percent in 1992. The rate
rose again to a high of 20.6 percent in 1996 and persistently hovered in
that range until 2002.

Some of the biggest reductions came in teens who reported using marijuana
and ecstasy, a chemical that behaves like a combination
amphetamine/hallucinogen.

"Marijuana use has held stubbornly high in the upper grades until now and
ecstasy was the only drug showing sharp increases," said University of
Michigan researcher Lloyd Johnston, who was the lead author of the survey.
Still, nearly half of all 12th graders reported smoking marijuana at some time.

Johnston's report credited ad campaigns specifically aimed at discouraging
use of those two drugs and growing media attention to the reported risks of
taking ecstasy. Some of the most familiar ads link drug use to terrorism
through messages such as: "I helped kill a judge in Colombia" by purchasing
illegal drugs.

Marcia Rosenbaum, director of the San Francisco office of the liberal Drug
Policy Alliance, saw other possible explanations. Often, she said, teens
change their behavior after directly experiencing or observing the
ramifications of drug use up close. She speculated that young people
stopped using ecstasy when they saw friends die as a result.

Georgetown University psychiatry professor Robert DuPont praised Bush and
Walters for aggressively opposing state initiatives to legalize marijuana
for medical use. Such initiatives have served to "normalize drug use," he
argued.

DuPont, who ran the White House drug policy office under Presidents Nixon,
Ford and Carter, said proponents of medical marijuana won virtually every
campaign in 1996, 1998 and 2000 but lost in every state contest they
entered in 2002. "John (Walters) went out and made that happen," he said.

This year, "Monitoring the Future" surveyed nearly 50,000 students in 392
high schools across the nation. The anonymous survey, which covers more
than a dozen drugs, plus alcohol and tobacco, asks young people whether
they have ever used each product or used it in the past month. The approach
is meant to capture current and previous drug users.

Although LSD use had been steadily declining, Walters suggested the steeper
drop in the last two years was the result of a high-profile bust in 2000 at
an enormous lab in Oregon. Police seized the equivalent of 20 million doses
of LSD.

"We didn't realize that LSD production was so centralized," he said.

Researchers found no real change in the number of teens who reported using
cocaine, heroin or alcohol, though binge drinking dipped slightly. More
junior high students reported using less expensive, more readily available
inhalants such as glue, paint thinner and aerosols. And officials remain
concerned about improper use of oxycontin, a powerful narcotic that is
prescribed as a pain reliever but has become a popular recreational drug.

"Considering the addictive potential of this drug, these are disturbingly
high rates of use," said Johnston. Oxycontin was added to the survey in
2002, and the number of children in all three grades who reported taking
the drug has risen.

Researchers remain divided over the most accurate way to measure the
nation's drug problem. DuPont said tracking drug usage is the clearest
indication, but Rosenbaum and others say rising crime rates, drug overdoses
and the number of addicted prison inmates suggest the situation is much
more complicated.