HEROIN USE, BY SNORTING, IS FOUND TO RISE IN YOUTH

CHICAGO - Heroin use has risen rapidly in recent years among US teenagers,
and many middle-class youths are snorting the drug, rather than shooting it
up, in the mistaken belief that snorting is less addictive, a study has
found.

The proportion of American 12th-graders who had used heroin doubled from
1990 and 1996, from 0.9 percent to 1.8 percent, according to a study in the
December issue of the journal Pediatrics. The rate edged up again last
year, to 2.1 percent, with some states reporting even higher percentages,
said the study's author, Dr. Richard H. Schwartz of the Inova Hospital for
Children in Falls Church, Va. He cited data from the federal government and
other sources.

While the overall share of adolescents using the drug remains low, the
highly addictive nature of heroin and the consequences of getting hooked
make the trend troubling, he said.

Dr. Alan I. Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said
the increase in heroin use is similar to that observed for cocaine and
appears to be leveling off.

''There's been an increase in purity of heroin on the street, and that
increase in purity is drawing a generation of heroin sniffers, snorters,
intranasal users, rather than injectors,'' Leshner said. ''They foolishly
think if you don't inject it, it's not addicting, which is incredibly wrong.

And so you're seeing middle-class, upper middle-class yuppies using heroin,
where five years ago, they wouldn't go near it.'' Schwartz said the average
price of heroin has dropped by nearly two-thirds, while purity has gone
from 10 percent to more than 50 percent.