DRUG TRENDS DISTURB EXPERTS

SOUTHFIELD -- The latest drugs being abused, especially by teens and young
adults, sound awfully familiar: marijuana, alcohol and tobacco.

That's due to new products, marketing strategies and packaging meant to
draw in and hook a new generation of users, experts told more than 500
people at the third annual Drug Trends Regional Conference.

The event, sponsored by the Prevention Coalition of Southeastern Michigan,
brought together law enforcement agencies, schools, churches, grass-roots
organizations and prevention and treatment groups from Metro Detroit.

The conference focused on the "Dirty Dozen," the latest trends in drug use
showing up on the streets, at dance parties, in hospital emergency rooms,
jails -- and county morgues.

Legal products make up a large portion of the list: fruit-flavored liquors
called "alcopops," flavored cigarettes and potent imported smokes called
"bidis," liquor-spiked gelatin shots and prescription and over-the-counter
medications from Oxycontin to Ritalin to cough and cold medicine.

"We're going to have these cycles of drug abuse. There will always be a
steady tide we have to fight against, but we have these waves," said John
Lunt, chief of the Demand Reduction Section for the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration.

Other trends include club drugs, such as Ecstasy, are being supplemented or
cut with substances to prolong the high.

Marijuana is being smoked with cocaine -- then rolled into joints called
"51s" -- or dipped in embalming fluid and cut with PCP, a powerful
hallucinogen -- called "amps" or "wet."

There was some good news, however, provided by experts on tobacco use among
teens: Fewer teens are smoking and fewer stores are selling smokes to
underage kids.

But while the tobacco industry has been chastised for advertising campaigns
that critics say target kids, Americans seemingly haven't noticed that the
alcohol industry is slipping back into television advertising after a
decades-long voluntary ban on broadcast stations.