ANTIDRUG ADS ADMIT SOME KIDS SMOKE POT

Three out of four kids at Park City High School don't smoke pot, says
the cheery voice of a young woman on KPCW, the local radio station.
"We're having fun without alcohol or drugs."

Cool. So what about the remaining 25 percent?

In some Utah communities that message -- confirming substance abuse
among teens -- might be controversial. But Park City High School, in
conjunction with Valley Mental Health, is taking a new tack on alcohol
and drug prevention, says Merilee Buchanan, assistant program manager.

"We're not saying there isn't a problem," Buchanan says. "But by
focusing on the behavior we want, we're working with adolescent
development, not against it."

The essence of the "social norms approach," she explains, is to
demonstrate to teens that the majority of their peers, in fact, are
not substance abusers. That knowledge arms youth with information that
could stop them from giving in to peer pressure to smoke dope or drink
alcohol.

"If a ninth-grade kid believes that 90 percent of the school smokes
pot, he's going to feel peer pressure to join them," Buchanan says.
"But if he thinks only 25 percent do it, then his behavior will follow
the trend."

At least that's the theory. And it smacks head-on into more
traditional approaches, like DARE, that focus on only the negative
aspects of substance abuse.

But a growing body of evidence shows that the strategy employed by
programs like DARE doesn't work, said Wesley Perkins, professor of
sociology at Hobart and William Smith College in New York.

"Health terrorism -- trying to scare health into teens by telling them
all the bad things that will happen to them -- doesn't change
high-risk behavior," says Perkins, a pioneer in the area and editor of
the text The Social Norms Approach to Preventing School and
College-Age Substance Abuse.

Park City has long had a reputation as a party town. Drug and alcohol
abuse here may be higher than it is in other Utah communities -- at
least that's the perception. Earlier this year, the Park City Police
Department teamed with the Summit County Sheriff's Office and other
agencies to search the high school campus with drug-sniffing dogs.

Few illicit substances were found. It's what Perkins calls the
"misperception of the norm" phenomenon.

"We find that in every student population," he explains. "We
discovered a pattern where students grossly misperceive the peer norm.
They overestimate two to three fold."

To combat prevailing attitudes, Park City High, in conjunction with
Valley Mental Health and a $150,000 state grant, surveyed 445 of about
1,200 Park City High students. The survey was conducted with
permission of parents although students remained anonymous.

It revealed that two out of three students did not drink alcohol, that
three out of four did not smoke pot, and that nine out of 10 did not
use other illicit substances.

The program then outlined a public relations campaign through posters,
radio, student and community newspapers and television so that teens
and their parents could become aware of the findings, Buchanan said.
"So when kids say, 'Hey, everybody at the party was drinking,' the
parents will say, 'We don't think so.' "

Dave Adamson, the superintendent of the Park City School District,
says he likes the new program because it gives information to the
entire town. "The community perception is that we have a bigger
problem than we actually have."

Drug and alcohol abuse among teens is an issue in every high school,
Adamson said. "At that age, to have an adult tell you it's a bad thing
doesn't carry the same weight as it does when peers do."

But the new paradigm does raise red flags because it concedes that
youth are using drugs and alcohol, said Perkins. "Some people are
fearful because we're saying that 25 percent do. That's true. But
[without the information] students estimate that 75 percent do. With
continued information based on credible data, students will scale back
exaggerated misperceptions."