DRUG USE DECLINING AMONG U.S. TEENS, SURVEY SUGGESTS

WASHINGTON - The number of American teen-agers using illegal drugs fell
markedly over the past two years, the first noteworthy decline in more
than a decade, according to government data released Friday.

The percentage of high school students who reported they'd used an
illicit drug in the past month fell to 17.3 percent this year, down
from 19.4 percent in 2001, according to the comprehensive "Monitoring
the Future" survey. That translates into 400,000 fewer high school
students using drugs.

Although they cannot be certain, Bush administration officials
attributed the decline to more aggressive and targeted anti-drug
advertising, additional money for treatment and a drop in supply
caused by law enforcement crackdowns.

"This survey shows that when we push back against the drug problem, it
gets smaller," said John Walters, director of the White House Office
of National Drug Control Policy. "Fewer teens are using drugs because
of the deliberate and serious messages they have received about the
dangers of drugs."

Other analysts cautioned that drug use is cyclic and that the survey
may understate the problem because it relies on young people to report
their own illegal behavior. And although President Bush has increased
funding for addiction treatment, he has cut spending for prevention
programs.

"I'm pleased there is a drop, but two years does not make a trend,"
said Herbert Kleber, professor of psychiatry and director of the
division on substance abuse at Columbia University. "I would like to
see the shape of the curve over the next couple years to see whether
this is a blip."

Since researchers began surveying 8th, 10th and 12th graders in 1975,
teen drug use has followed a roller coaster path. After climbing in
the late 1970s and early 1980s, usage slowly fell to 10.5 percent in
1992. The rate rose again to a high of 20.6 percent in 1996 and
persistently hovered in that range until 2002.

Some of the biggest reductions came in teens who reported using
marijuana and ecstasy, a chemical that behaves like a combination
amphetamine/hallucinogen.

"Marijuana use has held stubbornly high in the upper grades until now
and ecstasy was the only drug showing sharp increases," said
University of Michigan researcher Lloyd Johnston, who was the lead
author of the survey. Still, nearly half of all 12th graders reported
smoking marijuana at some time.

Johnston's report credited ad campaigns specifically aimed at
discouraging use of those two drugs and growing media attention to the
reported risks of taking ecstasy. Some of the most familiar ads link
drug use to terrorism through messages such as: "I helped kill a judge
in Colombia" by purchasing illegal drugs.

Marcia Rosenbaum, director of the San Francisco office of the liberal
Drug Policy Alliance, saw other possible explanations. Often, she
said, teens change their behavior after directly experiencing or
observing the ramifications of drug use up close. She speculated that
young people stopped using ecstasy when they saw friends die as a result.

Georgetown University psychiatry professor Robert DuPont praised Bush
and Walters for aggressively opposing state initiatives to legalize
marijuana for medical use. Such initiatives have served to "normalize
drug use," he argued.

DuPont, who ran the White House drug policy office under Presidents
Nixon, Ford and Carter, said proponents of medical marijuana won
virtually every campaign in 1996, 1998 and 2000 but lost in every
state contest they entered in 2002. "John (Walters) went out and made
that happen," he said.

This year, "Monitoring the Future" surveyed nearly 50,000 students in
392 high schools across the nation. The anonymous survey, which covers
more than a dozen drugs, plus alcohol and tobacco, asks young people
whether they have ever used each product or used it in the past month.
The approach is meant to capture current and previous drug users.

Although LSD use had been steadily declining, Walters suggested the
steeper drop in the last two years was the result of a high-profile
bust in 2000 at an enormous lab in Oregon. Police seized the
equivalent of 20 million doses of LSD.

"We didn't realize that LSD production was so centralized," he
said.

Researchers found no real change in the number of teens who reported
using cocaine, heroin or alcohol, though binge drinking dipped
slightly. More junior high students reported using less expensive,
more readily available inhalants such as glue, paint thinner and
aerosols. And officials remain concerned about improper use of
oxycontin, a powerful narcotic that is prescribed as a pain reliever
but has become a popular recreational drug.

"Considering the addictive potential of this drug, these are
disturbingly high rates of use," said Johnston. Oxycontin was added to
the survey in 2002, and the number of children in all three grades who
reported taking the drug has risen.

Researchers remain divided over the most accurate way to measure the
nation's drug problem. DuPont said tracking drug usage is the clearest
indication, but Rosenbaum and others say rising crime rates, drug
overdoses and the number of addicted prison inmates suggest the
situation is much more complicated.