STUDY: EUROPEAN YOUTHS MORE LIKELY TO DRINK AND SMOKE; MORE DRUG USE IN U.S.

STOCKHOLM (AP) - European teenagers are more likely to drink and smoke,
while drug use appeared more widespread among American youths in a study on
alcohol, tobacco and drug use released during a conference that ended here
Wednesday.

The classroom survey of teenagers found that an average 37 per cent of
European youths had smoked in a 30-day period in 1999, compared with 26 per
cent in the United States. Some 24 per cent of Europeans queried had used
an alcoholic beverage at least 40 times, while the U.S. figure was 16 per
cent. Canadian data was not included.

Forty-one per cent of the U.S. teens said they had tried marijuana or
hashish, compared with 16 per cent of the European youth. And while six per
cent of the Europeans said they had experience with another illicit drug,
16 per cent of the American students had used amphetamines and 10 per cent
had used LSD, according to the survey.

The study, released Tuesday during a WHO conference on young people and
alcohol, was primarily focused on Europe, with anonymous responses from
nearly 100,000 students aged 15 and 16 in 30 countries from the United
Kingdom to Ukraine. But it included more limited data from a similar 1999
study of some 14,000 American 10th graders.

Delegates at the three-day conference, organized under the auspices of the
World Health Organization and Sweden, which currently holds the rotating EU
presidency, were seeking ways to fight alcohol abuse among young people in
Europe.

"It is known that both regular heavy drinking and binge drinking have
serious effect on young people's physical and mental health" EU
Commissioner David Byrne said in prepared closing remarks. "Alcohol
drinking by youngsters is associated with a wide range of social problems,
such as anti-social behaviour, violence and drink driving."

Representatives from 51 mostly European countries endorsed a final
declaration setting the goals of delaying the age youths start drinking,
providing alternatives to alcohol and drug use and minimizing the pressures
to drink with advertising restrictions and other measures by 2006.

The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs compared its
1999 findings to a similar study conducted in 1995, when data were
collected in 26 countries.

Results showed an increase in binge drinking - having five or more drinks
in a row - in almost half of the participating countries and an increase in
the use of illicit drugs in almost all of them.

Researchers said a notable decrease was recorded in the United Kingdom and
Ireland, while there was a large increase in central and eastern Europe.

The report, which said the most commonly used drug was cannabis, did not
speculate about reasons for the changes in any of the categories.