STUDENTS' USE OF CLUB DRUG ECSTASY UP 55%

WASHINGTON - The use of the illegal "club drug" Ecstasy rose this year by
roughly 55% among high school sophomores and seniors, surging particularly
in the Northeast and in other urban areas where teens appear to be using
the drug to fuel all-night partying.

But some younger students focused more on pumping up than on partying down,
driving a 40% to 50% increase in the use of performance-enhancing steroids
among kids in eighth and 10th grade. All told, 2.8% of sophomore boys
reported that they had used muscle-building steroids during the year.

Those are the latest findings from an annual survey of about 45,000
students conducted for the Department of Health and Human Services by the
University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. The results were
released Friday in Washington by a phalanx of senior Clinton administration
officials, who found both good and bad news in the mix.

Overall, the study found that illicit drug use among teens was holding
steady at a level just below its recent peaks in 1996 and 1997 - with 38%
of high school seniors acknowledging use of marijuana or hashish in the
last year, just over 10% acknowledging amphetamine use and 6.2%
acknowledging the use of cocaine.

Among all grades surveyed, alcohol use remained fairly steady. Asked
whether they had consumed alcohol in the last 30 days, 24% of
eighth-graders, 40% of 10th-graders and 51% of 12th-graders said yes. Asked
whether they had been drunk in that period, 9.4% of eighth-graders, 22.5%
of 10th-graders and 32.9% of high school seniors responded affirmatively.
Researchers said they detected a "slight uptick" of binge drinking
- -consuming five or more drinks in a row sometime in the prior two weeks -
in the lower grades polled.

"Overall drug use is down substantially among youth," said Gen. Barry R.
McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy. "However, it still remains at unacceptably high levels for all ages."

The growth of Ecstasy use among high school students - a trend that has
been tracked only since 1996 - comes after the synthetic amphetamine with
hallucinogenic qualities made a strong early appearance and then dropped
off for two years in a row (in 1997 and 1998). In 1999, however, its
popularity appeared to be on the rebound, with 5.6% of high school seniors
and 4.4% of sophomores saying they had taken the drug in the past year.

In the Northeast, where its use was highest this year, almost 10% of those
polled said they had tried the drug in the last year. But in the West,
which is largely rural outside of dense metropolitan areas like Southern
California, 5% of high school seniors said they had used the drug, up from
4% the year before. Lloyd Johnston of the University of Michigan, who
supervised the survey, said use of the drug appeared to span the
socioeconomic spectrum.

Evidence of its increased use is consistent with reports of greatly
increased U.S. border confiscation of the drug, which is made mainly in
illegal European laboratories. The U.S. Customs Service reported that busts
were up 700% this year.

Johnston said that the increased use of anabolic steroids seemed tied both
to a long-term rise in young men's preoccupation with body size and shape
and with the admitted use by baseball slugger Mark McGwire of a steroid
called androstenedione. The surveys are conducted in the spring, and thus
are taken during baseball season.

"As many had feared, we think it likely that Mark McGwire's reported use of
androstenedione in the year in which he set a new home run record affected
young boys," Johnston said. While he acknowledged that survey questions did
not directly probe the link, Johnston added: "Surely it gave them the idea
that it could make them stronger."

But, he said, there is evidence that McGwire's use of androstenedione - a
testosterone booster that is not a controlled substance - appears to have
reassured some youngsters about the safety of using steroids. Among
12th-graders, the only age group asked about the safety of using steroids,
62% this year said they believed steroid users risk harming themselves,
physically or in other ways. That figure marked a significant drop from
1998, when 68% of seniors said the use of anabolic steroids could be harmful.

McGwire announced early this year that he had stopped using
androstenedione, citing concern over the effect of his actions on young
people.