TEENAGE DRUG USE DROPS TO AN 8-YEAR LOW

WASHINGTON - " Drug use among high school and junior high school students
has dropped to its lowest level in eight years despite fears that drugs and
alcohol use would rise to deal with added stress after the Sept. 11
attacks, drug policy officials said today.

The annual survey, released by the National Parents' Resource Institute for
Drug Education, found that the percent of students who used alcohol or
tobacco at least once from August to June was the lowest it had been in the
15-year history of the study.

Pride, a research company solicited by school districts to collect data on
drug use in their communities, surveyed the drug and alcohol use of 100,000
students in grades 6 to 12 in rural and suburban school districts during
the previous school year.

While the overall percentage of students using illegal drugs like cocaine,
marijuana and heroin fell to an eight-year low, the percent using cocaine
and heroin monthly remained the same for 6th, 8th and 12th graders, the
study found.

Tobacco use among teenagers declined the most, the survey found, to 26.4
percent from 30.5.

More than half the minors surveyed said they had consumed alcohol within
the past year, a slight decrease from previous studies.

Students who did well in school or participated in extracurricular
activities were the least likely to use drugs or alcohol, the study said.
The survey also found that teachers were talking with students about
substance abuse nearly as much as parents were, another factor contributing
to the decline.

The director of the White House drug policy office, John P. Walters, who
concurred with the report's findings, said one reason for the decline in
drug use among teenagers might be because more parents and teachers were
talking with them about the subject since the Sept. 11 attacks.

"One thing the terrible events of Sept. 11 did was make people think about
how fragile the things are that we enjoy and how important it is to pass
those along," Mr. Walters said.

Mr. Walters also noted that recent antidrug advertising campaigns, like
those broadcast by the White House in January, "are having an affect on
young people."

The study found that 74 percent of students surveyed said that anti-drug
commercials linking drug use to terrorism had made them less likely to use
drugs.

Previous Pride surveys have been consistent with those of other federal
studies in recent years. Many federal and government agencies have used
data from past Pride surveys as a resource when determining antidrug
policies, officials said.

While drug use among teenagers nationwide may be declining, 28 percent of
New York teenagers reported increased use of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana
since Sept. 11, according to a separate study published in the May issue of
The American Journal of Epidemiology.