MILLIONS HAVE DRIVEN ON DRUGS, U.S. SAYS

WASHINGTON - An estimated 11 million Americans, including nearly one in
five 21-year-olds, have driven while under the influence of illegal drugs,
the government says. The numbers announced Tuesday were especially high for
college students. Eighteen percent of students surveyed said they drove
while on drugs last year, compared with 14 percent of their peers who
weren't in college.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, said the statistics show a failure to convince drivers that drugs
impair driving as much as alcohol does. His office is kicking off an ad
campaign to warn teens about driving while smoking marijuana.

"Marijuana is not the soft drug. Marijuana is not the casual rite of
passage," Walters said at a news conference. "We have been sending the
wrong message."

Walters said marijuana can affect concentration, perception, coordination
and reaction time for up to 24 hours after smoking it.

Officials also cited a recent study that said 15 percent of high school
seniors have driven under the influence of marijuana. That study, published
in May, analyzed 2001 data collected as part of the University of
Michigan's annual "Monitoring the Future" study, which questioned 44,000
students in 424 public and private schools in the country.

Nineteen-year-old Theodore Stevens of New Jersey told reporters that he
believed smoking pot and driving wasn't dangerous despite getting into four
accidents in three years. He says he's lucky none of those incidents caused
serious injuries.

"Sometimes I believed it increased my driving performance," said Stevens,
who has been in drug treatment for four months after being charged with
possession of marijuana, cocaine and heroin. Stevens began smoking pot when
he was 14.

The report, compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
used 2002 data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The survey
questioned 68,000 people. Researchers then extrapolated the percentages to
the population as a whole. A federal statistician said the margin of error
was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

For 21-year-olds, the rate of those who reported driving under the
influence of drugs was 18 percent, the highest of any age group. That
dropped off to 14.5 percent for 22-year-olds. Unemployed adults age 26 to
49 also had a high frequency of driving while drugged - 9.3 percent,
compared with 5.1 percent for drivers employed full time.

Among racial or ethnic groups, American Indians reported the highest rate
of driving while drugged, at 6.3 percent compared with 5 percent of whites,
4.5 percent of blacks, 3.7 percent of Hispanics, 3.1 percent of Pacific
Islanders and 1.3 percent of Asians.

Dr. Jeffrey Runge, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration, said there were approximately 38,000 crashes last year
involving drivers impaired by marijuana. But Runge said he didn't know how
many fatal accidents were caused by drugged drivers. State data collection
is spotty, Runge said, and many drivers who are driving while drugged are
also drinking.

"While we don't have fixed data, impairment is impairment," he said.