HIGH ON PUBLIC RELATIONS

To hear the Clinton administration tell the story, the United States has
made dramatic progress among teen-agers in recent years in the nation's war
against drugs. Reality, however, is an altogether different matter.

Responding to the 1999 Monitoring the Future survey of illegal drug use by
eighth, 10th and 12th graders, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the White House Drug
Policy Director, was very upbeat, though undeservedly so. "The findings are
extremely encouraging and serve as an indicator that the country's team
effort and National Drug Strategy are working," the nation's drug czar
exclaimed. Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala added,
"Today's report confirms that we have halted the dangerous trend of
increased drug use among our young people."

While what Miss Shalala said was true, what she did not say is that the
level of drug use among the nation's youth has stabilized at very high
levels --utterly unacceptable levels that were universally considered
catastrophic when they were reached in recent years. While the significant
annual increases in illicit drug use that characterized the first five
years of the Clinton administration may no longer be occurring, teen drug
use remains far above the levels Mr. Clinton inherited. At best, a terrible
problem is no longer getting worse. It simply remains terrible. The
administration is better at public relations than reducing drug abuse.

Consider the percentage of teen-agers who have anonymously acknowledged
using illicit drugs during their lifetime. Among high school seniors, who
have been annually surveyed since 1975, the acknowledgment of illicit drug
use within one's lifetime peaked at 65.6 percent in 1981. That rate
declined during each of the next 11 years, reaching 40.7 percent in 1992.
It has increased in six of the past seven years, including 1999, and now
stands at 54.7 percent, its highest level since 1987.

Use of marijuana within one's lifetime among 12th graders plunged from a
record-level 60.4 percent in 1979 to 32.6 percent in 1992, having fallen 13
years in a row. It, too, has increased during six of the past seven years,
reaching 49.7 percent in 1999, its highest level since 1987. Use of
marijuana by high school seniors within the previous 30 days has increased
by 94 percent during the Clinton-Gore administration.

The percentage of high school seniors who smoked marijuana daily during the
previous 30 days has increased by more than 200 percent since 1992,
reaching 6 percent in 1999, the highest level in nearly 20 years. Use of
cocaine within the previous 30 days by high school seniors has doubled
during the Clinton administration, reaching 2.6 percent in 1999, the
highest level in a decade.

Eighth and 10th graders have been anonymously surveyed since 1991. The
percentages of eighth and 10th graders who acknowledged in 1999 that they
have used marijuana within their lifetime were virtually twice as high --
22 percent and 40.9 percent, respectively -- as their corresponding
percentages in 1992. For 10th graders, lifetime cocaine use has more than
doubled since 1992, reaching 7.7 percent in 1999, the highest level in a
decade. Nearly three times as many 10th graders reported using cocaine
within the past year than in 1992.

In 1999, marijuana use by eighth graders within the previous 30 days was
three times the rate in 1991. Compared to 1992, daily use of marijuana
within the previous 30 days by eighth and 10th graders in 1999 increased by
600 percent and 300 percent, respectively.

On balance, the performance of the Clinton-Gore administration on the teen
drug war front has been abysmal. No amount of cheerleading or public
relations can detract from that fact.