TEENAGE DRUG USE IS DROPPING, A STUDY FINDS

Smoking, drinking and the use of illegal drugs among teenagers fell
simultaneously this year for the first time, according to an annual
survey conducted for the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

The survey, known as Monitoring the Future, and carried out by the
University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, also found a
drop in the use of Ecstasy, the club drug, after several recent years
in which the drug had exploded in popularity among
adolescents.

"The fact that there are such broad declines in all forms of substance
abuse is very encouraging," said Lloyd Johnston, a University of
Michigan psychologist who led the study.

But the use of heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine, drugs for which
there has been far less of an organized campaign by the government or
private groups to publicize their dangers in the past few years, held
about even, according to the study.

The survey tracks substance abuse among 8th, 10th and 12th graders,
using a randomly selected sample of 44,000 students in 400 schools
around the nation. It has been conducted since 1975 and is considered
because of its methodology, the size of the sampling and the prestige
of the institution conducting it the most reliable indicator of
teenage substance abuse.

Experts offered varied theories for the declines.

Professor Johnston said that the across-the-board drop in smoking,
drinking and drug use, which took place among all three grade levels,
suggested that some large force was at work, perhaps the impact of the
terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.

"A decline in use already was under way for a number of substances,
including cigarettes, inhalants, LSD and others," Professor Johnston
said.

"But the downturn in alcohol this year was striking and overall
illicit drug use began to decline for the first time across the
board," he said. "So, I think it quite possible that the tragedy of
9/11 had somewhat of a sobering effect on the country's young people."

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, agreed that Sept. 11 played a role in the decrease in
teenage smoking, drinking and drug use.

"Before 9/11 the world was a giant shopping mall for young people,"
Mr. Walters said. "Now they are taking things more seriously and
paying attention to adult warnings about risks."

But Dr. Glen Hanson, the acting director of the National Institute on
Drug Abuse, said there was no scientific evidence of a Sept. 11
effect. The survey does not ask students why they do or do not use
drugs.

"It has not been studied," Dr. Hanson said. "You could make the
opposite case =E2=80=94 that 9/11 made people more anxious and prone to
substance abuse."

Instead, Dr. Hanson said he believed the explanation for the overall
drop lay in teenagers' increased perception of the risks involved in
smoking, drinking and drug use with an increase in negative
advertising on television and in other media, some of it paid for by
the settlement of lawsuits with tobacco companies.

"The one predictor that we have learned from studies that is reliable
is perceived risk," Dr. Hanson said. "When teenagers perceive risk is
going up, drug use starts down, and that's what the survey this year
shows."

One of the biggest declines occurred in smoking, with the proportion
of teenagers who said that they had ever smoked cigarettes falling by
4 or 5 percentage points compared with 2001 in each of the three
grades, 8th, 10th and 12th.

Teenage smoking peaked in 1996 or 1997, depending on the grade level,
as did the use of drugs, the survey said. The new survey found that
among 8th graders, the proportion who have ever smoked has dropped by
half since 1996, to 10.7 percent from 21 percent.

"That is a very appreciable change in behavior," Professor Johnston
said.

Although the declines among 10th and 12th graders were not as sharp,
Professor Johnston said he expects the gains to improve in the next
few years simply as the current 8th graders move into upper grades.

This is known as a "cohort effect," Professor Johnston said. It is the
opposite, and better side of what happened in the early 1990's when an
increase in teenage smoking began with 8th graders and then continued
as they grew older, he said.

Among the explanations for the decline in smoking, Professor Johnston
said, were increasing prices, less tobacco advertising and more
anti-smoking advertisements. In addition, he said, the survey found
that teenagers have a less favorable view of smoking. Among 8th
graders, 81 percent said they prefer to date nonsmokers, up from 71
percent in 1996. Among 12th graders, 72 percent said they prefer to
date nonsmokers, up from 64 percent in 1996.

With alcohol, the proportion of 8th graders who said they had consumed
alcohol in the past year declined 3.2 percent, and 3.5 percent among
10th graders, the report said. Since the peak year, the proportion of
8th graders who said they have had a drink in the past year fell to
38.7 percent this year from 45.5 percent in 1996.

With drugs, use of any drug other than marijuana in the past year
dropped 2 percentage points among 8th graders, 2.1 percentage points
among 10th graders and 0.7 percentage points among 12th graders.

The rate for use of drugs other than marijuana among 8th graders is
now one-third lower than it was in 1996, the recent peak year, the
report said. And annual use is down about 15 percent among 10th
graders since its 1996 peak.