POT SMOKERS TEND TO BECOME DROPOUTS

New York - Teens who smoke marijuana may be
more than twice as likely to drop out of high school than their
nonsmoking peers, results of a recent study suggest.

The study, in a recent issue of Health Economics, found that students
who have smoked marijuana at least once are about 2.3 times more
likely to quit school. The decision to drop out was also found to be
influenced by the age of the student and the use of other substances
such as alcohol, cigarettes and drugs such as cocaine, hallucinogens,
or sedatives.

``The results suggest that marijuana initiation is positively related
to dropping out of high school,'' write Jeremy W. Bray and colleagues
at the Research Triangle Institute in Research Triangle Park, North
Carolina.

The findings confirm the results of previous research linking
substance use to lower educational attainment. The study included more
than 1,300 teenagers, aged 16 to 18, who attended public school in the
southeastern US.

The survey showed that 41% of 16-year-old students, 46% of 17-year-old
students, and 49% of 18-year-old students had smoked marijuana at least once.

These rates were 62%, 65% and 67% for cigarette use and 76%, 79% and
82% for alcohol use, respectively. Forty percent of teens had used
other drugs by the age of 16 and more than 44% had tried other drugs
by the age of 18, researchers found.

The investigators found that dropout rates were higher for students
who had tried any of the substances than among students who had not
tried marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes or other drugs, ''and in many
cases it is more than double the rates of students who have not
initiated substance use.''

However, the authors note that their study did not include a
nationally representative sample of students and defined substance
initiation as any use of the substance, including one-time
experimentation, rather than regular use.

Still, the study may be used by policy makers and researchers seeking
to understand the causes of dropping out and the changes that
teenagers undergo toward the end of their high school years.

``Such a broader appreciation will be necessary if research is to
inform policy makers not just about the extent of high school dropout,
but also about effective ways to prevent this problem,'' Bray and
colleagues conclude.

According to the report, marijuana use among US teens aged 12 to 17
rose to 9.4% in 1997 from 4.4% in 1990. SOURCE: Health Economics
2000;9:9-18.