MASS. DRUG USE BAFFLES SPECIALISTS

Blame It On The Liberals

Or the New Agers. Or the college kids. Or New York drug runners.
Perhaps it's the pressures of the dot-com economy. Or rampant
materialism. Or lenient state laws.

A day after a national report found that Massachusetts ranks near the
top in drug use in almost every age group, local drug abuse experts and
politicians are seeking answers. Theories have been floated and fingers
pointed, but the only point of consensus is that tougher, more abundant
drug treatment is needed in the state.

In two dozen interviews, the complexity of the illicit drug issue - its
myriad causes and potential solutions - became apparent. There is the
supply side: Massachusetts is on the East Coast, where most drugs enter
the country, and near New York, home to major drug networks. There is
the demand side: money is abundant and life's pressures are greater for
many. And there are the intangibles: Massachusetts' tolerant reputation
and the licentious bent of its many campuses.

"Pinpointing the exact factors - that ain't easy. But the bottom line
is that we need to do more prevention and treatment," said Tom Clark,
research associate at Health and Addictions Research Inc., a social
policy think tank in Boston.

The survey, by the US Department of Health and Human Services, found
that the Commonwealth ranked No. 1 in several categories: 12- to 17-
year-olds addicted to illegal drugs and alcohol; 18- to 25-year-olds
who smoked marijuana in the past month; 18- to 25-year-olds using any
illicit drugs in the past month; and those 26 and older using illegal
drugs other than marijuana.

Overall, drug and alcohol use is down sharply nationwide over a 20-year
period, the study found, precipitously falling between 1979 and 1990,
then leveling off. But it was the first-ever study of its kind to
compare states, putting Massachusetts in a disconcerting and troubling
light.

Governor Paul Cellucci yesterday drew attention to the MassCall program
he recently launched, which will provide 24 communities with $7.5
million over three years to study and combat illegal drug use.

But Dr. David Gastfriend, director of addiction services at
Massachusetts General Hospital and a Harvard psychiatry professor, said
the state's substance abuse problem doesn't invite an easy solution. He
suggested the cyber-fueled economy in Greater Boston might be to blame.

"I have stockbrokers, venture capital folks, and dot-com developers
coming for treatment," he said. "It's not just a good economy, it's a
weird economy. It's a very hard-working, long-hour, highly competitive
type of prosperity."

"And that pressure is being felt by college students and high school
students," he added.

Speaking from a socioeconomic world away, Andy Ward, director of the
South Boston Collaborative, which helps poor addicts, said he has
noticed an uptick of heroin abuse among his patients.

"Heroin has become such an easy drug to get. So you're getting younger
kids addicted to it," he said.

Boston is at the end of a fast-moving heroin pipeline that originates
in New York City and runs through Providence, noted several drug abuse
researchers. Massachusetts, therefore, has greater access to heroin and
most other drugs than Oklahoma, for example.

"The availability on the East Coast is simply greater because of supply
routes," said Clark.

But the climate in Oklahoma is more conservative and less tolerant of
experimentation, said a drug counselor who moved here from the
Heartland state only three weeks ago.

"Oklahoma is in the Bible Belt. Everyone in Oklahoma goes to church on
Sunday. I haven't got the sense that people here take the time out for
that," said Marie Cecchini, assistant director for Boston Narconon, a
drug prevention and rehabilitation program.

"There's much more peer pressure here. The expectation here is to have
a nice car, a nice job. You didn't have that as much in Oklahoma," she
said.

Cecchini complained about the indirect, New Age nature of many of the
drug treatment programs here.

"I think only a very few of the programs here deal with basic education
- - what a drug is and what it does to your body," she said. "They can do
all these stress workshops and whatever but that belongs in stress
management class, not drug prevention."

This weekend, thousands of college students will descend upon the city,
and some drug specialists blame their numbers and experimental ways for
spiking up local drug statistics.

"We have these people from Idaho and New Jersey and Nebraska who are
counted in Massachusetts," said Paul Jacobsen, assistant commissioner
of the state Department of Public Health.

Finally, some people interviewed raised the notion that the
Commonwealth simply has a more liberal atmosphere, radiating out from
Harvard Square, that is relatively tolerant of drug experimentation.
And this might be reflected in lighter punishments for drug use, they
speculated.

"Maybe the state is more forgiving in its penalties. I mean, how hard
do you come down on kids who try drugs once?" said Matthew Leahy, vice
president of laboratory operations for Secon, a drug screening company
that does testing for state prisons and workplaces. "You can only do so
much to lower drug use."