FEWER TEENS THINK POT IS HARMFUL

NEW YORK, Jun 08 (Reuters) -- Teens in the 1990s are less likely to believe
that marijuana is harmful, and less likely to disapprove of those using the
illicit drug than teens were 10 years ago, according to a report in the
current issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

These trends may explain the rise in the number of teens using marijuana in
the 1990s following a decline in use of the drug among teens in the 1980s.
To stem the recent rise in marijuana use, prevention programs should focus
on the risks and consequences of use, conclude researchers at the Institute
for Social Research at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Changes in lifestyle factors -- such as the prevalence of conservatism or
commitment to religion among students -- do not account for these trends,
according to the authors, who analyzed surveys tracking marijuana use and
attitudes to its use among high school students.

"(A)ttitudes about specific drugs -- disapproval of use and perceptions of
risk of harmfulness -- are among the most important determinants of actual
use," wrote the researchers.

In light of these findings, the authors suggest that drug prevention
programs focus on the risks and consequences of drug taking.

Surveys of more than 230,000 students over three decades show dramatic
shifts in marijuana use. Use rose during the late 1960s and most of the
1970s, declined substantially throughout the 1980s, but has been rising
again for much of the 1990s. The same surveys show accompanying changes in
lifestyle factors and in perceptions of and attitudes toward drug use.

The study suggests that changes in marijuana use -- and drug use in general
- -- are due to shifts in perceptions of the risks and social acceptability of
drugs, rather than lifestyle trends.

"Young people did not become distinctly more conservative in the 1980s, nor
did they become distinctly less so in the 1990s," the researchers note.

"(I)f we want to know why marijuana use is on the rise again we need to ask
why it is that (teens) have become less concerned in recent years about the
risks of marijuana use, and why they do not disapprove of such use as
strongly as students did just a few years earlier," they write.

One possible explanation for this shift is that antidrug campaigns have
waned over the last decade, the authors comment. These campaigns,
emphasizing the dangers of drug use, appear to have played a key role in the
decline in drug use in the 1980s.

"The implication for prevention is that presenting such information once
does not finish the job; the messages must be repeated lest they be lost
from one (generation) to the next," the authors concluded. SOURCE: American
Journal of Public Health 1998;88:887-892.

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett