TEENS WHOSE FRIENDS HAVE SEX ARE AT RISK, SURVEY SAYS

Teens who have sexually active friends face a significantly higher risk of
smoking, drinking and using drugs than do other youths, according to an
annual Columbia University teen substance-abuse survey released yesterday.

The survey found that teens, 12 to 17 years old, who said half or more of
their friends were sexually active were found to be 31 times likelier to get
drunk, 22 times likelier to try marijuana, and more than five times as
likely to smoke cigarettes.

Advocates for liberalizing U.S. drug laws accused the writers of the report
- - which showed no causal connection between sexual activity and drug or
alcohol use - of sensationalizing typical teenage behavior to make a
stronger case against the use of marijuana and other drugs.

For the first time, the survey by Columbia's National Center on Addiction
and Substance Abuse focused on the relationship between teen dating behavior
and tobacco, alcohol and illegal drug use. It was the ninth annual report.

Wilson Compton, a physician and division director at the National Institute
on Drug Abuse, said links between sex and drug use were less obvious and
more complicated than they might seem. He said research showed risky drug
use was more likely to be followed by risky sexual activity than the other
way around.

The report also showed that drugs had reemerged as the No. 1 concern of
teens after sharing that place a year earlier with academic and social
pressures. Nearly half in the survey said they could buy marijuana within a
day.

"There's been no progress in reducing the availability of marijuana," said
Joseph A. Califano Jr., the former secretary of Health, Education and
Welfare who is chairman and president of the national center. "And the
concern is that the marijuana today is not the marijuana of the 1970s. It's
much stronger."

Keith Stroup, executive director and founder of the National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the report was emblematic of the
misguided way in which social conservatives want to dictate the drug war.

"It's unrealistic and absurd to suggest that the goal is adolescents never
having sex, adolescents never experimenting with marijuana," Stroup said.
"It's about time we quit acting like this is shocking behavior."

The survey showed that of the 1,000 teens surveyed by phone, 38 percent said
they had friends who smoked marijuana, up from 32 percent last year. In
addition, 36 percent had friends who smoked cigarettes, up from 30 percent,
and 48 percent had friends who drank regularly, compared with 44 percent.

The survey found that teens who spent more than 25 hours a week with a
boyfriend or a girlfriend also were more likely to drink and use illegal
drugs. They were 2.5 times more likely to drink and 4.5 times more likely to
have tried marijuana.

The survey also pointed to a trend among girls with boyfriends two or more
years older than themselves. Those girls were more than twice as likely to
drink and six times as likely to have tried marijuana.

The survey was conducted between April 16 and May 16. The margin of error is
plus or minus three percentage points for the entire group, larger for
subgroups.