MORE YOUNG ADULT CRIMINALS SMOKE POT

While marijuana use during the 1990s held steady in the nation's general
population, its popularity among 18- to 20-year-olds arrested for crimes
soared and is now epidemic, according to a report released Friday by the
U.S. Department of Justice.

Moreover, the study of 23 cities found that as marijuana use grew, crack
and heroin use declined significantly -- raising questions about the
long-debated inevitability that marijuana use will lead to harder drugs.

Co-author Andrew Golub, a senior researcher at the National Development and
Research Institute, a New York-based foundation, said that the rate of 18-
to 20-year-old youths who tested positive for marijuana at the time of
their arrests rose from 25 percent in 1991, to 57 percent in 1996, to 60
percent in 1999.