YOUNG TEENS MORE AWARE OF DRUGS

After six years of steady increases, rates of marijuana use and tobacco
smoking may be leveling off among young adolescents as slightly more
eighthgraders seem to have a greater awareness of the dangers associated
with those activities, according to an annual federal survey of high school
students released yesterday.

"This change in attitudes represents a glimmer of hope in our efforts to
protect our children from drugs, but our work is far from over," President
Clinton said yesterday, commenting on the survey results in his weekly
radio address.

As a statistical matter, the changes were too small to be significant
statistically. They were also largely confined to eighthgraders, the
youngest age group surveyed. Marijuana use and cigarette smoking are still
on the rise among 10th and 12thgraders, according to the 1997 Monitoring
the Future study.

"It is a complicated story this year because not all the trend lines are
moving in the same direction," said Lloyd D. Johnston, chief researcher on
the study, which has been conducted for 23 years by the University of
Michigan Institute for Social Research under federal grants.

"The good news is that we are beginning to see greater appreciation of the
risks among the young teens, and that should translate into decreased drug
abuse in the next few years, but that still leaves us at very high levels
of teen drug use, twice what they were in the early 1990s in some cases,"
Johnston said.

Rep. Rob Portman (ROhio) had a slightly different take than Clinton on the
survey. In the GOP weekly radio address, Portman said: "This is not the
time to take comfort in a

report that confirms these unacceptable levels. While it's better than last
year, remember it still represents a failing grade."

The drug use epidemic that began in the late 1960s reached a peak in the
mid1980s, according to a variety of measures. Then, reported drug use
dropped sharply among teenagers as perceptions of the risks increased. But
in the early 1990s, reported drug use began to pick up again.

The percentage of 12thgraders reporting the use of any illicit drug during
the prior year in the Monitoring the Future survey increased steadily from
27.1 percent in 1992 to 40.2 percent in 1996 and this year rose to 42.4
percent. Tenthgraders reported a similar steady increase in the use of
illicit drugs which include marijuana, cocaine, heroin and hallucinogens
but not alcohol or cigarettes.

At the same time that their use of drugs was growing, their concern about
the potential risks of drug use declined, the 1997 survey found. For
example, less that 25 percent of the high school seniors surveyed said that
occasional marijuana use posed "great risks" about the same level as in
1996 but well below the 1991 survey, when more than 40 percent of the
seniors expressed such concerns.

By contrast, eighthgraders reversed direction. The youngest teenagers
tracked their older counterparts through 1996. In 1991, 6.2 percent
reported smoking marijuana in the prior year; by 1996, 18.3 percent made a
similar statement. But in the 1997 survey, that figure dropped a fraction
to 17.7 percent. Similarly, the percentage of eighthgraders reporting that
regular marijuana use involves risks physical and otherwise rose from
70.9 percent last year to 72.7 percent in 1997. While the changes are too
small to be

statistically significant, Johnston and other researchers believe the data
may indicate a new trend.

"The relapse of the 1990s may have stalled or at least slowed down,"
Johnston said. In addition to Monitoring the Future, several other major
studies this year showed that teenage drug use was the same or lower than
last year in contrast to the steady increases recorded in the previous five
or six years.

Clinton administration officials eagerly seized on the news. "It means that
our messages, at least to young people, to the very young people, are
getting through," said Donna E. Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human
Services.

During the 1996 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Robert J. Dole
attempted to make a major issue of the sharp increases in adolescent drug
use, attacking Clinton for allegedly failing to show moral leadership on
the issue.

In his radio address yesterday, Clinton used the news of the survey to
issue an appeal to the nation's parents: "The most effective strategy we
have against drugs begins at home. It's a fight that can be won at kitchen
tables all across America."

He urged families to use time together during the holiday season to address
this subject and talk "frankly to your children about the destructive
consequences of trying and using drugs."

Clinton also touted the administration's drug control policies, including
expanded community policing and larger programs to interdict drug shipments
from abroad.

Critics of federal policies argued that the new survey results point up the
need for a new approach. "This survey suggests that prevention efforts
really can make a difference and that educating our children to resist
drugs should be our top policy priority and not the lowest,

as it is now," said Mathea Falco, president of Drug Strategies, a
Washingtonbased think tank that assesses drug control programs.

Falco noted that the federal government spends more on the incarceration of
drug offenders, about $2 billion, than it does on all drug programs aimed
at reducing youth drug use, about $1.8 billion.

The survey also reported that tobacco use among eighthgraders fell last
year after steadily increasing throughout the 1990s, remained about the
same among 10thgraders and increased among seniors.

From 1992 to 1996, the rate of cigarette smoking among eighthgraders rose,
as those reporting daily tobacco use in the prior month increased from 7
percent to 10.4 percent. This rate fell to 9 percent in 1997. Among
12thgraders, those reporting that they smoked in the prior month rose to
24.6 percent in 1997 from 22.2 percent the year before.

The 1997 Monitoring the Future survey involved the results of anonymous
questionnaires completed by 51,000 eighth, 10th and 12thgrade students
at 495 high schools nationwide.

© Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company