COLLEGES AND MARIJUANA USE

Colleges nationwide are going to "pot" with greater frequency than in the
past. According to a Harvard University study, marijuana use among U.S.
college students rose 22 percent from 1993 to 1999. More than 14,000
students from 119 colleges were surveyed.

The study found that 15.7 percent in 1999 said they had used marijuana
recently, up from 12.9 percent in 1993. And a 1997 Harvard study showed
that roughly a quarter of all college students had used marijuana in the
past year.

The key to reducing marijuana use among college students is to address the
problem well before they go to college. That means parents and children
need to communicate better.

According to a survey conducted last year by Partnership for a Drug Free
America, when parents talk to their children about the dangers of drug use,
children listen. Teens who receive strong anti-drug messages at home are 42
percent less likely to use drugs than those whose parents ignore the issue.

The study showed that among teens who talked with their parents about
drugs, 26 percent used marijuana. Among those who said they learned nothing
about drugs at home, 45 percent said they had used marijuana. In other
words, communication isn't a fool-proof strategy, but it is an effective one.

What the Drug Free America survey also found is that the earlier parents
talk to their children about drugs, the greater the chances for success.
For example, among fourth-graders, 74 percent said they wanted more details
from their parents about drugs, while among eighth-graders, the figure fell
to 19 percent.

When children enroll in college, the time for parental counsel regarding
the use of drugs, alcohol and smoking has, for all intents and purposes,
passed. Children are likely already to have developed value judgments
regarding those subjects.

Ultimately, each individual must decide whether or not to use drugs. But
the evidence is clear that those children in families where parents and
children regularly communicate and interact with one another experiment
with drugs much less than those families with little communication and
interaction. That is valuable information.