Drug Use up among kids ages 1114

Teenage smoking also increases, survey finds

By Noah Isackson
Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON Drug use may have leveled off among high school students last
year but it continued to grow among younger teenagers, the nation's largest
student drug survey reported Tuesday.

Overall, drug use by American teens remains at its highest level in 10
years despite antidrug efforts focused on schoolchildren.

Among high school student s surveyed, 24.6 percent reported using an
illicit drug at least once a month in 1996, statistically unchanged from
the year before. Among junior high students, 11.4 percent reported using an
illicit drug at least once a month, up from 10.9 percent a year ago, the
report said.

"Though I caution against too much optimism, there is a glimmer of hope in
the data," said Thomas Gleaton, president of Parent's Resource Institute
for Drug Education (PRIDE), the Atlantabased organization that conducted
the annual survey. "The increases this year are not nearly as steep as
we've seen in recent years and in some cases we observed slight decreases."

PRIDE researchers found hopeful signs in high schoolers' decreased use of
inhalants and hallucinogens, and lower beer consumption and inhalant use by
junior high students.

PRIDE surveyed 141,077 students in grades 6 through 12 from Illinois and 27
other states about their use of illegal drugs, cigarettes and alcohol. The
results of the survey are based on anonymous questionnaires.

The survey found an increase in the use of marijuana, cocaine,
amphetamines, barbiturates, hallucinogens and heroin among students 1114
years old.

"The evidence of increased drug use, especially by younger and younger
children is a sign that we are losing this war," said Sen. Paul Coverdell
(RGa.) "The involvement of everyone students, parents, teachers and
community leaders is essential if we ever hope to defeat the
international drug mafias and their domestic allies."

Despite public attention to tobacco's dangers and to adolescent cigarette
smoking, students are smoking more than ever, researchers said. More young
people smoked last year than at any time in the ten years of the survey.

Among high schoolers, 20 percent said they were daily smokers, and half
said they had smoked cigarettes in the past year, up 2 percent from the
year before. Smoking among junior high students remained steady, the report
said.