Marijuana use among U.S. preteenage children doubled in
1996, researchers reported Tuesday at the kickoff of a new
media blitz aimed at getting parents involved in the war
against drugs.

"Drugs can no longer be regarded as a teenage problem
only," Ginna Marston of the Partnership for a DrugFree
America told a news conference. Citing the partnership's
ninth annual study of U.S. drug use, Marston said marijuana
use among preteenagers had increased from about 230,000
children in 1995 to 460,000 children in 1996.

Even the higher number represents only 4 percent of all
children aged 9 through 12, but the study called it a
statistically significant increase.

Nearly one in four children aged 9 through 12 24
percent said they had been offered drugs last year, the
study found. White children showed increasing tolerance
toward drugs, while black children were becoming more
resistant, according to the study.

Since 1993, the children reported a decrease in the
amount of antidrug information they were getting from
outside sources such as school, television, movies,
televised public service announcements and friends.

The partnership, a nonprofit coalition of advertising
agencies and media professionals best known for its
antidrug advertisements, aimed to reverse this trend by
pushing a media effort in cooperation with the ABC
television network, Reader's Digest magazine and the
Department of Education. In addition to its 10yearold
campaign of televised and published public service
messages, the partnership's new effort will also introduce
antidrug themes into commercial programming on ABC during
the month of March.

On March 30, the network will hold an hourlong "town
meeting" discussion of the subject that will include a
period of silence during which parents will be encouraged
to talk about drugs with their children.

Education Secretary Richard Riley lent his support to
the project, saying that as part of the Clinton
administration's $ 556 million effort to educate young
people, he would launch "a vigorous review of antidrug
programs to see if they can pass muster."

He also took parents to task. "Some of you baby boomers
have tried it all and know better," Riley said at the news
conference, adding that children in second and third grade
7 and 8yearolds were old enough to get the antidrug
message.

The Education Department will join with ABC to
distribute some 3 million guides for parents on discussing
drugs with children. The 16page guides are based on a
special editorial section to run in the Reader's Digest's
April edition.