MARIJUANA IS THE DRUG OF CHOICE FOR YOUNG, STUDY SAYS

WASHINGTON -- 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.

"I think the findings are powerfully significant," said the study's
co-author, Andrew Golub, a senior researcher at the National Development
and Research Institute, a New York-based private, nonprofit foundation.

"Fifteen years ago, we documented that the use of cocaine, particularly
crack cocaine, was rampant among arrestees. Five years ago, we documented
that crack (use) was declining," Golub said.

"What we see today is that the drug of choice among arrestees is marijuana,
and that it is not serving as a gateway to something else," Golub said.

Nationally, the study found, the rate of 18- to 20-year-old youths who
tested positive for marijuana at the time of their arrests for any crime
rose from 25 percent in 1991 to 57 percent in 1996. From 1996 to 1999, the
study found, marijuana use among that group of youths rose to about 60
percent and remained at that percentage through 1999, the most recent year
for which statistics were available.

The high percentage accounted for most of the increase reported among all
adults, 18 years and over, who tested positive for marijuana after their
arrests in the 1990s, the study found. In that group, the study says,
marijuana use went from about 20 percent of the arrested population in 1990
to about 37 percent from 1996 on.

By comparison, the rate of marijuana use in the nation's general population
has remained static at about 5 percent for more than a decade, according to
the study.

"Marijuana appears to have become the drug of choice among youths coming of
age in the 1990s who tend to get in trouble with the law in the same way
that crack had been the drug of choice previously," the report says.

The research, Golub said, suggests that the spike in marijuana use is
attributable to several factors, including its acceptance as a
far-less-damaging alternative to harder narcotics.

"Many of these individuals have seen the devastation resulting from crack
and heroin use and they blame their parents' experiences on their use of
these drugs," he said. "And this explains why for many of these youths, use
of marijuana is perceived as an act of resilience" that is celebrated in
everything from clothing to music.

"This is a social phenomenon," Golub said. "These youths define marijuana
as not a drug."

The study was funded by the National Institute of Justice and is part of a
larger project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The 23 cities involved in the study are Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose,
Calif., Portland, Ore., Phoenix, Ariz., Denver, Dallas, Houston, San
Antonio, Texas, Omaha, Neb., St. Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Detroit,
Cleveland, New Orleans, Birmingham, Ala., Atlanta, Miami, Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York.