A WEAPON IN THE WAR ON DRUGS: DINING IN

If parents and middle and high school teachers and principals want to find
out why teenagers' 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 teenagers, 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 teens say their parents never have
talked to them about the dangers of drug use. Half of high school teachers
and principals believe that teenagers 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 teenagers 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 six 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. Teens
wh 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 teens 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.

Teens 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.

The writer is president of The National Center on Addiction and Substance
Abuse at Columbia University; he was secretary of health, education and
welfare from 1977 to 1979.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski