REPORT SAYS NOT ALL DRUG USERS FIT STEREOTYPE

WASHINGTON -- Seven in 10 people who used illegal drugs in 1997 had
full-time jobs, the government reports. Officials hope the data will dispel
notions that most drug users are burned out and disconnected from the
mainstream.

"The typical drug user is not poor and unemployed," said Barry McCaffrey,
the White House drug policy director. "He or she can be a co-worker, a
husband or wife, a parent."

About 6.3 million full-time workers, ages 18 to 49 -- or 7.7 percent --
admitted in 1997 using illegal drugs in the preceding month, according to
the report issued every few years by the Department of Health and Human
Services. The proportion has been steady since 1992.

Workers in restaurants, bars, construction and transportation were more
likely than others to use drugs, the report said.

HHS officials were using the report's findings to encourage businesses to
establish treatment programs. Increasingly, drug users are working in
medium-sized companies, which have the resources to establish these
programs, they said. Still, 44 percent of drug users were working for small
businesses -- those with fewer than 25 employees, down from 57 percent in
1994 but still the largest category.

"Whether you are corporate CEO or a small-business owner, you need to know
that simple, low-burden, effective steps ... can increase workplace safety
and productivity and lower substance abuse and its human and economic
effects," said Nelba Chavez, administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration, the HHS agency that produced the report.

The report also found that in 1997:

- -- Young adults, men, whites and those with less than a high school
education were more likely to use drugs than other workers.

- -- Nineteen percent of food preparation workers, waiters, waitresses and
bartenders used illegal drugs. For construction workers, it was 14 percent;
for transportation and material moving workers, it was 10 percent.

- -- Workers who used drugs were more likely to have worked for three or more
employers, to have left a job in the past year and to have skipped a day or
more of work in the past month.