SEX, DRUGS AND PROHIBITION

A Report by Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse Ties Teen Sexual
Behavior With Substance Abuse - a Conclusion Based Entirely On
Sensationalism.

While the war on drugs is primarily a government enterprise, federal
drug warriors have plenty of allies at private think tanks. Perhaps
the most prominent of these is Joseph Califano's National Center on
Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), located at Columbia University.

CASA's latest report, issued Aug.19, is a profoundly strange document.
More importantly, it is profoundly dishonest.

Califano - who was secretary of Health and Human Services back when
Jimmy Carter was President and John Travolta was skinny - has built a
substantial late career stoking the fires of prohibition. CASA
regularly issues frightening reports that faithfully mirror the
rhetoric of government drug warriors. The alarm bells ring constantly,
but doubts about the efficacy of prohibition are never
entertained.

CASA's Aug. 19 press release announcing its ninth annual teen survey
proclaims, "Sexually active friends and dating practices can signal
increase in a teen's substance abuse risk." In the statement, Califano
warns, "This year's survey reveals a tight connection between teen
sexual behavior and substance abuse." Kids whose friends are sexually
active, girls with older boyfriends, teens who spend more than 25
hours a week with a girlfriend or boyfriend, and those who download
Internet porn are at particular risk, the report explains. Califano
advises, "Parents, make sure you are aware of the dating practices of
your child and get know your child's friends."

CASA's warnings about the link between sex and drugs are distractions
designed to cloud the real issue: After 30 years of a war on drugs,
marijuana use is going up, not down, illegal drugs remain readily
available, and large numbers of teens are tuning out the warnings of
adults. Instead of confronting these difficult issues, CASA has chosen
to throw out a series of red herrings.

First of all, is anyone really surprised that kids whose social
circles engage in proscribed sexual behaviors also break other rules?
Amazingly, several major news organizations promptly reported the
findings as if they were actual news.

What is most striking about the report is what CASA chose not to
emphasize, and what's missing altogether. Buried in an appendix, for
example, is the fact that the percentage of kids reporting use of
marijuana rose this year, as did the number reporting having tried
marijuana by age 13.

Missing altogether are tables showing whether there were any
correlations they chose not to highlight, or any indication of which,
if any, of the results - including the touted correlations between
drugs and sexual/dating behavior - were statistically
significant.

That's important, because some of the most sensational conclusions are
based on breathtakingly small numbers. For example, girls with
boyfriends two or more years older purportedly are six times more
likely than those with no boyfriends to get drunk in a typical month
or to smoke marijuana (they seem not to have asked about boys with
older girlfriends). But that is based on a sample of precisely 21
girls who said they had boyfriends two or more years older - half of
whom smoked marijuana and 35 percent of whom got drunk.

That's 11 girls smoking marijuana and seven getting drunk, out of a
total sample of 1,000 kids. And the data an outside observer would
need to run their own mathematical tests for statistical significance
are left out of CASA's report.

Also missing from this year's CASA survey is a whole series of
questions asked in previous years about the perceived harmfulness of
various drugs. This is puzzling for what is billed as a survey on
attitudes, especially given that the White House continues to blitz
teens and their parents with ads designed to frighten them about
marijuana. Don't they want to know if these commercials are having the
intended effect?

One can't help but wonder if there is something in the answers to
these questions that CASA would prefer not to hear. Other research has
suggested that the White House ads may actually be counterproductive,
and avoiding the relevant questions is one way to keep from confirming
the bad news.

Or maybe Califano and colleagues realized that the answers kids give to
these questions show how blatantly we are misinforming them about drugs.
Consider: Last year, 57 percent of teens said marijuana is "very addictive"
- - which is just plain wrong. Only 49 percent rated regular use of alcohol
as "very harmful" compared to 75 percent giving a "very harmful" rating to
marijuana - another conclusion that a mountain of scientific evidence
suggests is exactly backwards.

CASA's reports should get the same level of skepticism as any other
document put out by an advocacy group with a very large ax to grind -
as should the reports and studies issued periodically by government
drug warriors. Uncritical reporting of such nonsense serves no one.