SURVEY: 16 MILLION ON DRUGS

WASHINGTON - The United States has almost 16 million illegal drug
users, including one in five young adults, according to a government
survey that suggests use of marijuana and cocaine may be on the rise
after leveling off in recent years.

John Walters, the 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.

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

Among ages 12 to 17, 10.8 percent were described as current drug users
in 2001, up from about 9.7 percent the year before.

Young adults ages 18 to 25 were more likely to be users, increasing to
18.8 percent from 15.9 percent in 2000. The rate of drug use among
adults 26 and older stayed about the same, at 4.5 percent. Current
users are those who reported using a drug within the past month.

Although a few drugs, including LSD, are diminishing in popularity,
others are seeing big gains. The number of people who have tried
Ecstasy increased from 6.5 million in 2000 to 8.1 million last year,
the survey shows.

Nonmedical use of the pain reliever OxyContin more than doubled, from
399,000 users in 2000 to 957,000 in 2001.

The survey shows moderate increases in the use of marijuana and
cocaine by teenagers and young adults from 2000 to 2001. But
researchers said it was too soon to say whether that marks the
reversal of a trend of stable or declining drug use since the late-1990s.

"It could continue up and be the start of a long-term trend, or it
could go down again," said Joe Gfroerer, director of the survey by the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. "We don't
try to predict that."

Other national surveys saw no statistically significant increase in
drug use in 2001, and some even reported declines among young people.
The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse is the largest study.