Source: Reuter

Drug, alcohol abuse rising among adolescentsstudy


By Deborah Zabarenko WASHINGTON (Reuter) Drug and alcohol abuse
among American adolescents is on the rise, with heroin use among
eighthgraders doubling since 1991, a new study reported on
Wednesday. The incidence of heroin use in the eighth grade when
children are usually about 13 years of age rose from 1.2 percent
in 1991 to 2.4 percent in 1996, the National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse (CASA) reported at a news conference. CASA also
reported that more teenagers were using marijuana during seventh
grade or earlier, that more adolescents were bingedrinking at
earlier ages and that the peak time for starting tobacco smoking was
in the sixth and seventh grades, at about ages 11 and 12. The
percentage of 12yearolds who said they knew a friend or classmate
who used drugs like cocaine, the hallucinogen LSD or heroin more than
doubled between 1996 and 1997, the study found. ``The concern here is
that none of us are paying enough attention to the younger
children,'' CASA president Joseph Califano said. Califano, the former
U.S. health secretary, said that early use of tobacco, alcohol and
marijuana put adolescents at increase risk for abuse of LSD, cocaine
and heroin. He stressed the need for parents to be involved with
their teenagers to help keep them from substance abuse, but also
said the media, including advertisers, bore responsibility for the
glamorization of drug use, drinking and smoking. The report
recommended raising funds for research on addiction to $1 billion and
for a $2perpack tax on cigarettes, increased taxes on beer, tougher
laws on adolescents who drive while drinking or using drugs, curbs on
televised alcohol advertising, stiffer penalties for the sale of
cigarettes to minors and a strengthening of the proposed
multibilliondollar settlement between tobacco companies and those
suing them. The CASA report was based on a survey of 1,115 12 to
17yearolds in June and July and had a margin of error of plus or
minus 3.1 percent.

The general findings of the report were in line with figures
reported last week by the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS)
Department, which said teenagers were using more heroin but
that marijuana and alcohol abuse appeared to have leveled off.
HHS Secretary Donna Shalala praised the CASA report in a
statement and noted the Clinton administration's commitment to
reducing drug use among young people.
However, Ethan Nadelmann of the nonpartisan Lindesmith
Center drug policy think tank said the CASA study was a sign
of ``the persistent failure of our (U.S.) antidrug campaign and
propagandizing.''
``The tactics which we thought worked during the 1980s seem
to be backfiring in the 1990s and we might do better (in the
fight against drugs) by basing drug education efforts on facts
and science and less on demonization and political hype,''
Nadelmann said in a telephone interview.