VIRGINITY RARE, DRUG USE COMMON IN US ADULTS - STUDY

WASHINGTON - Just 4 per cent of US adults are virgins but a fifth
have tried hard drugs like cocaine and crack, a new study shows.

What most alarms researchers is how young they start.

"We still have a public health problem in that we still see a lot of
adults reporting their sexual debut at a pretty young age," said Dr.
Kathryn Porter of the National Center for Health Statistics, who led
the survey of more than 6000 people.

"That is an area of concern because risky sexual behaviours can
result in sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies,"
she said in a telephone interview.

Ninety-six per cent of US adults aged between 20 and 59 have engaged
in some kind of sex, including oral and anal sex, according to the
study published on Friday.

The researchers believe they have one of the most honest assessments
yet of sexual behaviour and drug use because they used a new method
to do the survey.

"They answered this in complete privacy," Porter said.

"They have a headset on, they touch a computer screen. This is the
first time we just looked at statistics for sexual behaviour and drug
use alone."

There were no surprises, Porter said, but what researchers already
know is troubling.

"Among non-Hispanic blacks, 28 per cent reported having first had sex
before the age of 15," she said.

The number was 14 per cent for whites.

"It seems we still have areas to kind of work on," Porter said.

The survey, done between 1999 and 2002, also showed 46 per cent of
black men said they had 15 or more sexual partners in a lifetime.

Overall, 17 per cent of men and 10 per cent of women said they had
two or more sexual partners in the past year. The younger a person
was, the more likely they were to have had multiple partners.

The survey found Mexican-Americans were the most likely to report
never having had any form of sex, with 24 per cent of men and 45 per
cent of women in that group claiming to be virgins.

For all men, the median number of sexual partners was 6.8.

"If you ask women, it is less -- it is 3.7," Porter said.

A history of drug use was most common among middle-aged adults.

More than 19 per cent of those aged 20 to 29 said they had tried
cocaine, crack or another street drug, excluding marijuana. This rose
to 27 per cent for people aged 30 to 39 and nearly 26 per cent for
those in their 40s.

But just 9.6 per cent of those aged 50 to 59 acknowledged having ever
tried street drugs.

"That number might be different if we had included marijuana," Porter said.

"When you look at the overall prevalence of adults ever having used
one (street drug), it is still over 20 per cent. That is a lot more
than I would have thought."

- - REUTERS