SURVEY - RISK OF DRUG USE RISES IN MIDDLE SCHOOLS

The first national drug-abuse survey to include elementary-school
children among the respondents suggests that youngsters become more
vulnerable to the lure of drugs once they leave the familiar
environment of primary school and strive to fit into middle school.

The new survey, by Pride, an organization based in Atlanta that
counsels schools and parents on ways to inhibit drug use among the
young, also confirms again what many researchers have long known: that
cigarettes, alcohol (primarily beer) and inhalants are used far more
by children than are marijuana or harder drugs.

Pride -- the name is an acronym for the National Parents' Resource
Institute for Drug Education -- issued its findings Wednesday at its
national conference in Cincinnati. Until now, drug-abuse surveys among
children did not focus on those below the eighth-grade. But Pride's
survey questioned pupils from grades four through six, and among the
findings were these:

The proportion of respondents who said they had smoked cigarettes in
the last month jumped to 7 percent of sixth-graders from 1.6 percent
of fourth-graders. Similarly 2.1 percent of fourth-graders said they
drank beer at least once a month, fewer than half the 4.7 percent of
sixth-graders who reported doing so. Monthly sniffing of glue and
other inhalants also rose between the grades, although less so: to 2.7
percent of sixth-graders from 2.2 percent of fourth- graders.

As for marijuana, only 0.4 percent of fourth-grade pupils acknowledged
having smoked it in the last month, as against 1.7 percent of
sixth-graders.

In discussing their findings, officials of Pride also cited previous
research, done for the National Institute on Drug Abuse, indicating
that children's risk of engaging in drug use rises when they move from
elementary school to middle school -- which, depending on the
district, begins in grade five, six or seven -- and later from middle
school to high school. Peer pressure and association with new friends
appear to be the leading causes.

Although marijuana use among the survey's respondents was far less
common than beer drinking or cigarette smoking, the director of the
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy noted a sharp jump
in monthly marijuana smoking from fifth-graders (0.6 percent) to sixth
(1.7 percent).

"The reported dramatic increase of marijuana use between the fifth-
and sixth-grades," said the director, retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey,
"is a real wake-up call to parents."