SURVEY: N.H. DRUG RATE HIGH ARCHIVES

New Hampshire and Vermont have among the highest rates of drug use in the
nation - according to responses the states' residents gave on a federal survey.

They led much larger states in the 2002 survey by the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Administration, which surveyed 68,000 people nationally.
Health officials in both states said they weren't surprised.

"What we are seeing is an enabling environment particularly for young
people. There is a presumption that marijuana is not harmful," said Vermont
Health Commissioner Paul Jarris. He said the most common reason people
between 12 and 18 age seek drug treatment is for marijuana abuse.

Alice Bruning, chief of Prevention Services for New Hampshire's Department
of Health and Human Services, said the drug's easy availability, combined
with a low perception of its risks, have established an environment of
tolerance in New England to marijuana.

"You have a lot of local supply. It's easy to grow in the kind of rural
forested communities that we have," Bruning said. "We don't have that
general attitude that we don't want people to smoke marijuana ... (but) if
we asked someone in the street, 'Do you think it's OK for kids to shoot
heroin?' They'd say, 'Are you crazy?"'

The survey, released earlier this week, puts both states in rare company.
New Hampshire and Vermont rank in the top 20 percent of states with the
highest frequency of drug use by people age 12 and over. And only five
other states - Colorado, Delaware, Massachusetts, Montana and South Dakota
- - join New Hampshire and Vermont as having the highest rates for marijuana
use and use of other drugs among residents ages 12 to 17. The survey
estimated drug use rates for nine substances: marijuana, cocaine, heroin,
hallucinogens, inhalants, non-medical use of prescription pain relievers,
tranquilizers, stimulants and sedatives. Bruning said demographics play a
big role in Northern New England's drug use rates, where Maine, New
Hampshire and Vermont rank in the top fifth of states with the most
first-time marijuana users ages 18 to 25.

In the same age group, the survey reported 30 percent of New Hampshire
residents, 29 percent of Vermont residents and 23 percent of Maine
residents used marijuana in the month before the survey, compared to less
than 7 percent nationwide.

Bruning linked marijuana use to binge drinking, which studies show to be
highest at small, private colleges in the Northeast - campuses full of
well-off students with the time and the freedom to do what they want.

"It looks as if it's the same kind of population that's binge drinking,"
she said.

"More and more students are coming to college with either their behaviors
already well under way or their expectations for what they're going to have
at college well under way."

But so-called "soft drugs" like marijuana are not the only problem for
largely white, middle-class New Hampshire and Vermont.

Heroin use is up in both states. Jarris said Colombian drug dealers,
operating through gangs in Massachusetts, were specifically targeting
Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

And Vermont is one of 14 states that does not monitor prescription drugs
that can be diverted to illegal use. When police crack down on one drug,
such as heroin, illegal use of drugs like Oxycontin will increase, Jarris said.

He said Vermont officials were working to educate people not to use illegal
drugs, to treat people with drug problems and to crack down on the drug trade.

"We've had an environment where we have often chosen to believe this is an
out-of-state problem," Jarris said. "We have years of work to do to."

Associated Press Writer Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vt., contributed to this
report.