BY THE NUMBERS

What differentiates social norming surveys from other drug and alcohol
surveys is that students are asked about their perceptions of peers'
actions.

Depending on how you look at the data from Palo Alto's recently
released survey, local students have either grossly misperceived their
fellow students' behavior -- relative to drugs and alcohol use -- or
are fairly good predictors.

A new task force of local parents, school administrators, health
experts and others are trying to show that students misperceive the
actions of other students. Correcting that misperception, the task
force believes, will help kids make "healthier" choices about drugs
and alcohol.

An analysis that students are relatively good forecasters would
directly counter that message.

Concerning tobacco use, students' perception of their peers often
missed the mark. At the middle schools, only 4 percent of students
said they had ever used tobacco. But more than 60 percent thought that
"most" had.

In high school, approximately 20 percent of students said they used
tobacco at least once, while more than 80 percent thought "most" had.

Students were better judges about alcohol use.

Less than 5 percent of middle school students said they drink in a
typical month. Only around 10 percent thought "most" do.

Less than 10 percent of high school students said they drink in a
typical week. Approximately 35 percent said they thought "most" do.

Since students were only asked how "most" of their peers are behaving,
it's hard to gauge overall accuracy for more popular behaviors.
Students sometimes had a nuanced view of their peers' actions.

For instance, while 22 percent of Palo Alto High School students said
they had tobacco at least once, 88 percent thought "most" had done so.
Meanwhile, 31 percent of Paly students said they had used marijuana
while 91 percent thought "most" had.

So while some were wrong in predicting what "most" kids were doing,
Paly students as a whole understood that marijuana was slightly more
popular than tobacco.