SEX, DRUGS, HONESTY: A PORTRAIT OF TODAY'S TEENS

They're coping with sex and drugs better than their elders did, but they
are less honest

OTTAWA - Today's teens are handling sex and drugs better than any
generation before them, says Alberta sociologist Reg Bibby.

In Canada's Teens, a book to be released next week, he compares the values
of today's teens, parents and grandparents and says teens are slightly more
conservative about sex but less honest than their parents.

According to separate surveys of adults and teens Bibby conducted last
year, half of today's teens say they are currently sexually active, and 41
per cent are virgins. But while 82 per cent of teens approve of
heterosexual premarital sex, their baby boomer parents are 89 per cent in
favour of premarital sex, and twice as likely as the teens to approve of
extramarital sex (18 per cent versus 9 per cent for teens).

Teens and parents differ on one critical issue: adolescent sexual
behaviour. Fifty-six per cent of the 3,500 teens surveyed last year by
Bibby in 150 high schools across the country say consenting 15-17-year-olds
should be able to do whatever they like sexually. Only 21 per cent of their
parent's generation agree.

As for drugs, 93 per cent of teens say they could easily buy illegal drugs
such as ecstasy and cocaine if they wanted them.

Yet use of illegal drugs has remained relatively static since at least
1984, with only 14 per cent of teens admitting to using them. The one
exception is the use of marijuana and hashish, which has doubled to 37 per
cent since the first survey of teens in 1984.

Bibby, of the University of Lethbridge, has been surveying Canadian
attitudes since 1975, and is the author of a number of best-selling books
on religion as well as on teens.

In order to compare the experiences of today's teens with those of previous
generations, Bibby surveyed today's parents and grandparents on memories of
their high school years and says sexual behaviour and values changed
radically in the late 1960s, but have remained relatively unchanged since.

Twenty-one per cent of grandparents and 63 per cent of baby boomer parents
said sexual involvement was common when they were teenagers, as do 85 per
cent of Generation Xers, those born between 1965 and 1984.