DRUG USE INCREASING AMONG AMERICA'S YOUNGSTERS

WASHINGTON -- Use of marijuana, cocaine and other illegal drugs increased
sharply among young Americans last year, according to a new government survey.

The study also found sharp increases in nonmedical use of prescription
painkillers and tranquilizers. Only tobacco use declined.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, attributed the increased marijuana use to "a fundamental
misunderstanding" propagated by the baby-boomer generation that marijuana
is safe and should be legal.

"We have sent the wrong message, and we have to correct that," Walters said.

"Marijuana is not some harmless chemical toy but a clear and present danger
to the health and well-being of all its users," said Tommy Thompson,
secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The findings, contained in the 2001 National Household Survey on Drug
Abuse, are based on 70,000 interviews with persons aged 12 and older.

The percentage that said they were marijuana users increased to 5.4 percent
in 2001 from 4.8 percent in 2000. The numbers had held roughly steady
between 1996 and 2000. Cocaine users increased to 0.07 percent from 0.05
percent.

The worrisome factor in the marijuana increase, said Thompson, is a spurt
in first-time users last year, most of them younger than 18. The number -
about 2.4 million - is down significantly from a mid-'70s peak of 3.2
million but higher than in most of the 1990s.

Health officials also noted that the number of people who perceived smoking
marijuana once or twice a week as risky dropped to 53 percent.

Overall, 15.9 million Americans older than 12 reported using an illicit
drug in the month before being interviewed for the survey. That amounts to
7.1 percent of that population group in 2001 versus 6.3 percent in 2000.

Nearly 1 in 5 18- to 25-year-olds said they used illicit drugs.

Among fashionable drugs, use of the hallucinogen Ecstasy and abuse of the
prescription painkiller Oxycontin each has more than tripled since 1998.

The good news, Thompson said, was a continuing decline in smoking among 12-
to 17-year-olds. Their number is about one-third lower than in 1997.

"We lost a lot of ground in the '90s," said Charles Curie, director of the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the HHS agency
that sponsors the annual study. Curie blamed acceptance of marijuana and
peer pressure for the upsurge.

"When you start with marijuana, it is easy to get to the next step,"
Thompson said. The administration proposes to increase funding to
anti-drug-use campaigns, community organizations and faith-based groups, he
said.

A special committee of the Canadian Senate reached the opposite conclusion
in findings disclosed Wednesday. It concluded marijuana is less harmful
than alcohol and not a "gateway" drug that commonly leads users to more
serious narcotics.

According to the Canadian committee's report, criminalizing marijuana use
is "an utterly irrational restraint that has nothing to do with scientific
or public-health considerations."

Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a
Washington-based group that wants the drug to be legal but regulated,
suggested the Canadians were correct.

"It is at least worth discussing the possibility that what we are doing is
not working, but we have our government refusing to discuss it," he said.