SEE-NO-EVIL PARENTS HAVE TO FACE TEEN DRUG FACTS

IF parents and middle and high school teachers and principals want to
find out why teen-agers' drug use has soared in the past five years,
the first place they should look is in the mirror.

Teen pot smoking is up almost 300 percent since 1992, and use of other
illegal drugs such as acid, cocaine and heroin, as well as drinking
and smoking, also has increased. The recent survey of teen-agers,
teachers and principals by the National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University provides disturbing insights as
to why.

For the fourth straight year, 12- to 17-year-olds rate drugs their
most important problem, dwarfing violence, sex and social pressures.
For the third straight year, the percentage of high school students
who report that drugs are used, kept and sold at their schools has
risen, to 78 percent in 1998. For the first time, more than half of
middle-schoolers (that includes sixth-graders) report that drugs are
used, kept and sold at their schools.

What about parents, teachers and principals?

Almost half of middle and high school teen-agers say their parents
never have talked to them about the dangers of drug use. Half of high
school teachers and principals believe that teen-agers can smoke pot
every weekend and do well in school. Only 23 percent of their students
agree.

While three-fourths of high school students say drugs are sold, kept
and used at their schools, only 18 percent of principals think their
schools are not drug-free. While more than 70 percent of high school
teens say most of their classmates have tried marijuana, only a
quarter of teachers and principals think that.

On one grim assessment, teachers and teen-agers are in near agreement:
In middle school, 33 percent of teachers and 36 percent of students
see the drug problem getting worse in their schools; in high school,
41 percent of teachers and 51 percent of students see the drug problem
getting worse.

Here principals reveal their hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil
selves: Only 10 percent of middle and 15 percent of high school
principals admit the drug problem is getting worse in their schools.

That's the bad news. The good news is that parent power can make a big
difference. Kids who do not smoke pot credit their parents with their
decision; kids who smoke pot credit their peers. The odds that 12- to
17-year-olds will smoke, drink or use marijuana rise as the number of
meals they have with their parents declines. Only 6 percent of kids
who eat dinner with their parents six or more times a week smoke
compared with 24 percent of those who eat dinner with their parents
twice a week or less; for marijuana use, it's 12 percent compared with
35 percent.

Parental involvement and religious activities are the two most
effective protective factors for teens. Parents who eat meals with
their kids, know where they are after school and on weekends and are
involved in their children's school activities and academics are
likeliest to be parents of kids who don't smoke, drink or use
marijuana or other illegal drugs. Teen-agers who attend religious
services regularly are far less likely to use drugs, know drug dealers
or have friends who smoke, drink or do drugs than those who attend
such services less than once a month.

Sure, government has to do a better job of reducing teen access to
cigarettes, alcohol and drugs. Movies and music that glorify smoking,
drinking and drug use undoubtedly influence impressionable teen-agers
and make it more difficult to raise a child who has the skill and will
to say no. But teens of parents who eat, talk, play and pray together
are not likely to be lured into a world of cigarettes, marijuana and
alcohol despite the failure of government to make such substances
inaccessible to children and however adult and attractive the popular
culture makes such conduct. Teen-agers also would do well to take a
look in the mirror. Some 80 percent of 12-year-olds would report a
student drug dealer in their school. Only 22 percent of 16-year-olds
would report a student hawking illegal drugs.

Today when parents send their children off to middle and high school,
they are tossing them into a world where illegal drugs, cigarettes and
alcohol are readily available and their use is widely viewed as quite
acceptable. A drug-free school is an oxymoron in 1998 America. In the
survey, students, teachers and principals said that their school would
be drug-free when students, teachers and principals wanted it to be
drug-free. With a relentless application of parent power that takes
teens, teachers and principals at their word, American children might
once again be able to attend drug-free schools.

Califano is president of the National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University, in New York City. He was
secretary of health, education and welfare from 1977 to 1979.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry