HEAVY DRINKING REPORTED AMONG 10TH- , 12-GRADERS

Students' Responses To Survey Questions Also Show Rise In Cigarettes,
Marijuana

About a third of Snohomish County high school seniors and about a
quarter of area sophomores say they have participated in binge
drinking, consuming five or more drinks in one sitting, a survey
released Wednesday shows.

This means the number of local 10th- and 12th-graders reporting heavy
drinking has increased about 4 percentage points since 1995.

Questions on alcohol consumption were part of a survey of 9,100
Snohomish County students in the sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th grades
that also examined cigarette smoking, violence and marijuana use.

The survey, which questioned 37,000 students statewide, gives an
intimate look at prevalence of risky behaviors among youths in Washington.

The questionnaire was a project of the Office of Superintendent of
Public Instruction, the Department of Social and Health Services, and
the Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development. It was
conducted the last week in March and the first week of April.

In Snohomish County, students in the Edmonds, Everett, Granite Falls,
Lakewood, Monroe, Mukilteo and Snohomish school districts
participated, said Jack Wilson, a substance abuse prevention
specialist for the Snohomish County's Department of Human Services.

Although the amount of binge drinking is up, Wilson said he was
surprised even more by the patterns of drinking among sixth-grade students.

Locally, 6.4 percent of sixth-graders reported binge drinking;
statewide, it was 7.6 percent.

Some 13.8 percent of Washington sixth-graders reported they had drunk
some alcohol in the 30 days before the survey.

Half of these drinking sixth-graders said they get their alcohol at
home and their parents know about it.

"That probably hits me the hardest," Wilson said. "To me, it's a
travesty," he said of parents' reported knowledge of their children's
drinking habits.

Marijuana use by area sophomores and seniors is also up slightly, with
nearly 28 percent of local 10th-graders saying they had used the drug
in the 30 days before the survey and nearly 30 percent of seniors
saying they tried it, up 4 percentage points over 1995 levels.

High school cigarette smoking rates also have increased since 1995
with one-quarter of area sophomores and a third of seniors saying they
had smoked at least one cigarette in the past 30 days.

Violence continues to be a problem both here and across the state with
13 to 17 percent of Washington students reporting they had attacked
someone with the idea of seriously hurting them.

Locally, about 11 percent of sixth-graders said they had engaged in
this kind of violence, down from 15.8 percent in 1995. In eighth
grade, the percentage dropped from 20.2 percent in 1995 to 17 percent
in 1998. In the higher grades, the numbers changed little, with 16.3
percent of 10th-graders and 13.3 percent of 12th-graders reporting
violent behavior in 1998.

Peter Finch, principal at Granite Falls High School, speculates that a
student peer mediator program at many schools across the county and
state has cut down or leveled the incidents of students fighting.

The program, in which students help resolve conflicts, has had the
largest impact in lower grades, according to the study.

Lynn Evans, an assistant superintendent for schools in the south end
of the Everett School District, said she also has witnessed more
communitywide emphasis on the importance of keeping schools safe.

"I think there is certainly an increased awareness, not just among the
students themselves but among the parents in the community and the
community itself regarding the fact that we want our children to be
raised safely and to remember their childhood as being safe," Evans
said.

The number of students carrying a weapon to area schools either
remained steady or was slightly reduced from 1995.

Nearly 9 percent of local sixth-graders, 14 percent of eighth-graders,
nearly 13 percent or 10-graders and about 10 percent of 12th-graders
reported they had carried a gun, knife, razor, club, stick, pipe or
other weapon to school.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry