Teen Drug Use Falls, Finally

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Teen drug use fell last year, with about one in 10
teen-agers using marijuana and other drugs, the government reports today.
Officials say it's solid evidence that the nation has turned a corner after
rising drug use through the mid-1990s.

Overall, drug use among Americans of all ages remained level, but use among
young adults continued its steady rise, according to the annual household
survey of 25,500 people ages 12 and up.

All told, 78 million Americans had tried illegal drugs at some point in
their lives. Marijuana remained far and away the most popular drug, but
41.3 million Americans also had tried another heroin, cocaine or some other
illegal drug, the survey said.

Of them, 13.6 million were current users, about half what it was at its
1979 peak.

The survey results were being released today by Health and Human Services
Secretary Donna Shalala and Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's drug
policy adviser.

The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse also measured cigarette smoking
and found it down to 27.7 percent overall, the lowest rate recorded. But
smoking remained steady among teens and continued to rise among young
adults. Cigar use edged up.

The survey is most carefully watched as a gauge of teen drug use.

It found 9.9 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds had used some sort of drugs
within the past month, down from 11.4 percent in 1997. A second government
survey, which uses a different method to measure teen drug use, has found
that drug use was stable over the past two years after years on the rise.

"We can really say we're making progress," a Clinton administration
official said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Earlier reports
signaling a leveling off of teen drug use have been greeted with cautious
optimism, but the official said researchers were now confident that the
nation had "turned a corner."

The portion of teens saying they had ever used drugs was also down, from
18.8 percent in 1997 to 16.4 percent last year.

The declines were driven by older teens -- those ages 16 and 17 -- with the
percentage having used drugs in the past year falling from 30.7 percent to
26.8 percent.

Marijuana -- the most popular drug -- tends to fuel the overall rate,
though its usage has fluctuated over the past few years. Last year it fell
to 8.3 percent among teens, back to its 1995 level and still significantly
higher than the 3.4 percent recorded in 1992.

Overall, teen drug use rose through much of the 1990s and is still much
higher than it was in 1991 and 1992. Researchers attribute the rise to a
relaxing of the intense prevention efforts of the 1980s.

Today's news was not as good for young adults aged 18 to 25. The survey
found 16.1 percent of them were "current users," meaning they had used
drugs in the past month. That rate has been gradually rising, up from 13.3
percent in 1994.

In particular, cocaine use was up, from 1.2 percent in 1997 to 2 percent in
1998.

Officials suspect that the rising statistics relate to this particular
group of people -- the same people who were more likely to use drugs when
they were teen-agers, who have now become young adults.

Overall, drug use among all ages remained level in 1998, with 13.6 million
current users. That's 6.2 percent of the population, statistically
unchanged from 6.4 percent in 1997.

But the rates have increased among minority groups. The percent of blacks
currently using drugs jumped from 5.8 percent in 1993 to 8.2 percent last
year. Hispanics saw a similar rise, from 4.4 percent to 6.1 percent over
those five years.

Teen and adult drug use is driven largely by use of marijuana, which
attracts nearly twice as many users as cocaine, heroine, LSD and other
drugs combined.

Overall use of marijuana was steady in 1998, with about 11 million
Americans smoking it in the month preceding the survey.

Other findings from the survey:

- --Heroin: A total of 130,000 people were currently using heroin, double the
number in 1993. And the age of users was dropping. In 1997, the typical
heroin user was 17.6 years old the first time they tried it, down from 18.3
percent in 1996.

- --Cocaine: The number of users was stable in 1998, with about 1.75 million,
though there were increases among teens and young adults.

- --Cigarettes: Some 60 million Americans age 12 and up said they were
current smokers, down from 29.6 percent in 1997. Among young adults, the
percentage has steadily increased from 34.6 percent in 1994 to 41.6 percent
last year.

- --Cigars: Use increased to 6.9 percent last year from 5.9 percent in 1997.