SCIENCE IS THE NEW DRUG ANTIDOTE

Feds Fund Exhibit to Educate Teens

Long gone is the finger-wagging demand, "Just say no."

That egg sizzling in the frying pan to show "your brain on drugs" is
yesterday.

If you want to persuade kids to stay off drugs today, show them how
chemicals in marijuana, cocaine and Ecstasy desensitize parts of their
brain's pleasure system and create long-term addiction.

That's the message of the $300,000 "Science of Addiction" exhibit
unveiled Wednesday at the Arizona Science Center. Science centers
across the country are expected to display similar exhibits funded by
the federal government.

John Walters, President Bush's "drug czar," was on hand for the
exhibit's unveiling, as were Gov. Janet Napolitano and 100 eighth-
graders from Hillcrest Middle School. "Addiction, as you'll see, is a
disease," Walters told the students. "It changes your brain."

Using words such as "pernicious" and "invidious" as he spoke to the
students, Walters said the simplistic anti-drug messages of the past
never worked.

"This is an effort to make the science clearer and more accessible" to
teens, said Walters, whose official title is director of National Drug
Control and Policy.

More than 5.7 million Americans are being treated for drug addiction,
he said. Nearly one-quarter of those are teens.

If individuals don't begin using drugs by their teenage years, they
likely never will, Walters said.

"So we need you not to look the other way, not to be indifferent," he
said. "If we don't have more people on our side, there will be more
death and destruction."

In Arizona, teenage drug and alcohol use is higher than the national
average, according to a recent survey by the Arizona Criminal Justice
Commission.

Nearly half of the state's eighth-, 10th- and 12th-grade students who
were surveyed said they had used alcohol in the month previous to the
survey, and nearly one-quarter said they had participated in binge
drinking in the two weeks previous to the survey, released in December.

Cigarette use also had increased. Nearly half of all teens surveyed
said they had smoked at least once in their life. A separate survey
released Wednesday ranks Arizona 13th in the nation for funding
programs to protect kids from tobacco. A year ago, it ranked second.

More than 20 percent of students surveyed had used marijuana. Lifetime
use of Ecstasy by teens was above the national rate for all grades in
Arizona.

"They begin drug use with a lie," Walters said, adding that teens
often believe they can stop when they want.

Both Walters and Gov. Janet Napolitano told the students that buying
drugs funds terrorist activities.

"It's not even worth it to start in the first place," Napolitano told
the students. "What happens when people start is they lose their
productivity, they lose their oomph, they lose their ambition."