YOUTH DRUG USE IS UP, STUDY SHOWS

Wrong Message Is Sent, A Federal Official Says

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

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

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 12 and older.

The proportion that said they were marijuana users jumped from 4.8 percent
in 2000 to 5.4 percent in 2001. The level had been about steady between 1996
and 2000. Cocaine users rose from .05 percent to .07 percent.

The worrisome factor in the marijuana increase, according to 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 is higher than in most of the 1990s.

Overall, 15.9 million people older than 12 reported using an illicit drug in
the month before being interviewed for the survey. That is 7.1 percent of
that population group in 2001 versus 6.3 percent in 2000. Nearly a fifth of
people 18-25 years old said they used illicit drugs.

Among fashionable drugs, use of the hallucinogen ecstasy and abuse of the
prescription painkiller OxyContin have more than tripled since 1998.

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

Otherwise, "we lost a lot of ground in the '90s," said Charles Curie, the
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 antidrug
use campaigns, community organizations and faith-based groups, he said.

Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said the nation
may have to rethink its antidrug policy. The Washington-based group wants
marijuana to be legal but regulated.

"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.