TODAY'S TEEN-AGERS 'JUST SAY KNOW' TO ILLEGAL DRUGS

Every year during the holidays, researchers at the University of
Michigan present us with the results of their annual "Monitoring the
Future" survey of adolescent drug use.

As the mother of a teen-ager, this survey of 44,000 8th-, 10th- and
12th-graders consistently captures my attention. Although high school
seniors' use of "illicit" drugs showed no significant declines (with
"lifetime" use/experimentation holding steady at 53 percent and annual use
at 41 percent), I was encouraged to see lowering rates among younger
students. And I was delighted that the use of arguably the two most
dangerous drugs out there, tobacco and alcohol, had dropped. Cigarette
smoking, in fact, had been reduced by half since its peak in 1996.

Observers of these trends are scurrying to come up with explanations,
since the (http://www.monbitoringthefuture.org) survey does not ask teen-agers
the reasons for their drug use (or lack of it, as the case may be). The
survey's lead author, Lloyd Johnston, credits "a sobering effect"
following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Yet other experts, such
as acting director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Glen Hanson,
argue that Sept. 11 caused substance abuse to rise, as was documented by
the government's other large drug use survey (http://www.samhsa.gov/oah/nhsda)
released just a couple of months ago.

Some officials, such as drug czar John Walters, credit anti-drug
messages, saying, "This survey confirms that our drug-prevention efforts
are working and that when we work together and push back, the drug problem
gets smaller."

I agree that sound prevention efforts are crucial, so I read with
interest another, much less publicized study also released this month,
"School-Based Drug Prevention: What Kind of Drug Use Does it Prevent,"
sponsored by the esteemed research institute, RAND.

This study revealed that of all the drugs covered in prevention
education curricula, reductions in student use centered around the very
same substances that showed real declines in this year's "Monitoring the
Future" survey. Of the total number of drugs used less often by
teen-agers after exposure to prevention programs, tobacco accounted for
nearly 40 percent and alcohol represented close to one-third. Reductions
in cocaine use (which is already quite low for teen-agers) amounted to just
20 percent of the program's benefits, with lowering of marijuana use
trailing at a distant 3 percent.

According to the study's lead author, Jonathan Caulkins, "While we
commonly think of these anti-drug programs as targeted at street drugs, it
turns out that most of the benefits that society receives are due to the
cuts in the use of legal substances."

If teen-age alcohol and tobacco use is on the decline, and prevention
research indicates that school-based programs have an impact, one has to
wonder why we don't see reductions across the board. What is it about
teen-agers, and about the programs to which they have been exposed, many
since grade school, that is causing them to embrace one set of messages
but not others?

I believe the answer lies in the credibility of the messages we deliver
to young people. Many prevention professionals argue that the perception
of risk accounts for teen-agers' willingness to use or not use
drugs. Therefore, most adult messages to students, in school-based
programs, Web sites, and television ads, are filled with warnings of the
dire, often life-threatening, sometimes even unpatriotic consequences of
using illegal drugs.

Unfortunately, most thinking teen-agers, whether they use drugs or not,
have become cynical about the "risk and danger" messages they have heard
since they were small. They sort through information, knowing we adults
are so frightened about illegal drugs that we will say just about anything
to get them to abstain.

The messages have become transparently political. The recent surveys
make the point. Upon examining the information they have been given and
looking around for real-world confirmation, teen-agers believe that
despite their legal status, tobacco and alcohol kill hundreds of thousands
of Americans every year. When they hear, in school-based programs, that
cigarettes and alcohol are dangerous -- they believe it.

With marijuana, however, the illegal drug used by far more commonly than
any other prohibited substance, we have lost credibility with our
teen-agers because they know our motivation is political. Exaggerated
warnings about addiction and gateway (marijuana causing the use of harder
drugs), now supplemented by wild government claims of super-potency,
support of terrorism, and even schizophrenia, are being dismissed by
critical teen-agers.

Prevention programs should heed the messages coming out of recent studies
of teen-age drug use and scrutinize curricula carefully. Let's ditch the
politics when it comes to drug education. If we provide students with
information they trust, or better still, teach them to do their own
research, their approach to the use of all drugs will result in a
generation of savvy, healthy adults.