DRUG USE AMONG ARI. TEENS HIGH

PHOENIX (AP) -- For Scott Gwin, drugs are a part of everyday life.

"Weed, coke, speed. Most of my friends do it," the 15-year-old Central High
School student said.

Gwin insists it's easy for teens in Phoenix to get drugs at school, around
the corner, anywhere -- and a new government survey suggests they do.

Illicit drug use among Arizona teen-agers has dropped 3 percent since 1997,
but remains significantly higher than use among their peers nationwide,
according to a survey released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services.

The portion of Arizonans ages 12 to 17 who last year said they have used
drugs was nearly 24 percent, the study found -- the worst figure in the
country and far above the national average of 16.4 percent.

And no state had more teens smoking cigarettes last year, with 20.9 percent
saying they'd had a drag within the previous month. The U.S. average is 18.2
percent.

"I smoke cigarettes to get away from my problems," said Lilly Rhianna, a
14-year-old student whose mother took her cigarettes away this week.

Experts said easy access to drugs and family problems were to blame for the
state's poor showing. Teens at Central High seemed to agree.

"If they don't start young, they catch on during high school," said Norman
Harley, 16. "They see others doing it, or their moms and pops or friends.
It's just something to get into."

Overall drug use among Americans of all ages remained level last year, but
use among young adults continued its steady rise, according to the National
Household Survey on Drug Abuse, which included answers from 25,500 people
ages 12 and up.

All told, 78 million Americans have tried illegal drugs, the survey said.
Marijuana remained the most popular drug, but 41.3 million Americans also
have tried heroin, cocaine or some other illegal drug.

Of them, 13.6 million were current users -- about 6.2 percent of all
Americans and half what it was at its 1979 peak.

The survey also measures alcohol consumption, which was steady last year,
and cigarette smoking, which fell to its lowest level since 1971 when the
survey began. Last year, 27.7 percent of Americans smoked, with teen smoking
unchanged and smoking among young adults continuing to rise. Cigar smoking
edged up.

The survey -- carefully watched as a gauge of illicit drug use among teens
- -- also found 9.9 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds had used some sort of drugs
within the past month.

Residents of California and Arizona were oversampled to study effects of
voter initiatives to legalize some illicit drugs for medical use. Arizona
Gov. Jane Dee Hull's office had not seen the report and declined comment.

Some 11.5 percent of Arizona teens reported they were current marijuana
users, compared with 7.4 percent in California and 8.3 percent in the rest
of the country.

The survey also found that while overall teen drug use has dropped in
Arizona since 1997, the number of current cocaine users ages 12 to 17
increased from 1.9 percent to 2.3 percent.

Terri Leveton, director of chemical dependency treatment at Samaritan
Behavior Health Services in Scottsdale, said she's not surprised.

"Crack is the most prevalent because it's easily accessible and it's
relatively cheap," Leveton said. "It's easy to make and there's a whole
system of dealers in place in Arizona."

Leveton said the high percentage of teen drug use also indicates a much
larger problem in Arizona: family problems.

"There's definitely correlations between substance abuse and family crisis,"
Leveton said. "With Arizona having the highest statistics of child abuse, it
just makes sense to me that we'd have the highest number of children who are
self-medicating at an early age, especially when they see it in their home."