STUDY COMPARES LOCAL MARIJUANA USE

Franklin County residents are more likely to smoke marijuana than
Athens County residents, according to a new study from the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services.

About 7 percent of Columbus residents in Franklin County reported
using marijuana at least once in the past month, compared to 4.66
percent of residents in Athens, Hocking and Vinton counties. The three
Southeast Ohio counties -grouped together for the study -rank sixth
highest in the state's 22 regions polled in the survey. Use in Athens
County is higher than the average state use of 4.41 percent, but lower
than the national average of 5.1 percent.

"Metropolitan areas have much more drug traffic," said Terry Koons,
assistant director of substance abuse education at Hudson Health
Center. "Producers make more money in metropolitans."

Koons said rural areas such as Athens and the surrounding counties
grow and produce drugs to be sold in cities.

Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation in
Silver Spring, Md., said rural areas can have a drug problem.

"It's a myth that drugs are an urban problem," he said, adding that
the study shows Vermont and Alaska, both highly rural areas, have some
of the highest percentage of marijuana use in the nation.

"Franklin County doesn't stand out to other parts of the country,"
Sterling said. "It's not very far off the national average."

The study suggests college students caused the two highest national
estimates from Boston, Mass., at 12.2 percent, and Boulder, Colo., at
10.3 percent.

However, college students do not explain entirely the high percentages
of drug use. According to a 2004 report from the National Institute on
Drug Abuse, 18 percent of college students have used an illicit drug
other than marijuana in the past year, compared to 24 percent of
college-aged adults not enrolled in school.

"I'd take the study as a grain of salt," said Abby Bair, an Ohio
University graduate and outreach director for Students for a Sensible
Drug Policy in Washington, D.C. She said the survey data could be
misconstrued.

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health Report published the study
after three years of data -from 1999 to 2001 -collected from state
regions.

However, the study's sample sizes are inconsistent. The division of
states into regions varied greatly; states such as Ohio had 22
regions, while other states, such as New York, had only two.

Bair, who started a SSDP chapter at OU, said the government would use
the survey's findings to aid the drug war regardless of whether it
shows an increase or decrease of drug use.

"Most data is captured for propaganda purposes," Sterling said.