RESEARCHERS FOCUS ON STEROID USE

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A researcher found that more American boys are
using steroids and linked the increase to revelations that Mark
McGwire used steroids to bulk up his home run-hitting biceps.

At a news conference Friday in which Health and Human Services
Secretary Donna Shalala and Barry McCaffrey, White House drug policy
director, sought to focus on an overall decrease in the use of drugs
by America's teens, much of the attention fell instead on McGwire and
his use of the performance-enhancing drug androstenedione.

Researcher Lloyd Johnston, who has run the federally sponsored annual
study for 25 years, said more boys in the eighth, 10th and 12th grades
reported using steroids, and their attitude about the steroids appears
to have changed to a belief that they are not harmful.

``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. ``Surely it gave them the
idea that it could make them stronger.''

The study also found that the use of most illegal drugs, including
marijuana, cocaine, heroin and inhalants, remained steady and that
cigarette smoking remained stable, with a small decline among
eighth-graders.

It also found that more high school students are using the ``club
drug'' ecstasy. Among high school seniors, 8 percent reported having
tried ecstasy, up from under 6 percent last year.

Ecstasy, a methamphetamine that increases heart rate and body
temperature to sometimes dangerous levels, often is used at ``raves,''
all-night dances where young people mix the drug with alcohol, the
National Institute on Drug Abuse says.

McCaffrey and Shalala were reluctant to blame McGwire for the increase
in steroid use by youngsters. They cited a wide array of steroids,
including prescription asthma medications, and said the survey did not
analyze types of steroids the teen-agers were using.

``We need to take a much more careful look at what's going on here,
and all this study tells us is that we have an increased use, which is
a warning light for us that we need to go back and sort it out before
we make conclusions,'' Shalala said. ``I will point the finger at
anyone if I have evidence to point the finger, and at this moment, I
don't have any evidence.''

A spokesman for the St. Louis Cardinals, McGwire's team, did not
return telephone messages left at his office seeking comment on
Johnston's assertion about McGwire, nor did McGwire's agent. In
August, McGwire said he had stopped taking andro four months earlier
and would not take it again.

In the year after The Associated Press reported that McGwire was using
andro during his 70-homer season, sales of the testosterone booster
surged more than 1,000 percent to more than $50 million, industry
figures showed.

The drug is permitted in baseball but is banned by the Olympics, the
National Collegiate Athletic Association, the National Football League
and the men's and women's professional tennis tours.

The survey found that steroid use climbed among eighth- and
10th-graders, primarily among boys. The study said that in 1999, 2.8
percent of 10th-graders reported having tried steroids at least once,
compared to 2 percent in 1998.

Also, the number of seniors who perceived taking steroids as harmful
declined from 68 percent to 62 percent, a drop that Johnston described
as large. Because the surveys are conducted each spring, they
bracketed McGwire's 70-home-run 1998 season.

The survey, titled ``Monitoring the Future,'' is conducted each year
by the University Michigan and supported by the National Institutes of
Health and HHS. About 45,000 students from 433 secondary schools
across the country were questioned.