Source: The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS
Contact: newshour@pbs.org

TROUBLING REPORT

TRANSCRIPT

In a new report released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance
Abuse highlights increased hard drug use by younger and younger children.
The report cited a 122 percent increase in the number of kids saying they
knew a friend or classmate who used narcotics. Elizabeth Farnsworth
discusses the study with Joseph Califano, director of the center.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We begin tonight with a twopart look at drugs.
First, a new study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse
at Columbia University. It shows that preteen exposure to hard drugs
appears to be on the increase. The survey found that the percentage of
12yearolds who said they knew a friend or classmate who used acid,
cocaine, or heroin more than doubled between 1996 and 1997. Last year, less
than 11 percent said they knew a hard drug user. This year, almost a
quarter said they did, an increase of 122 percent. We get more on this now
from Joseph Califano, the president of the National Center. Thank you for
being with us, Mr. Califano.

JOSEPH CALIFANO: My pleasure.

Harder drugs and younger kids

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: These figures about the 12yearolds have been
getting a lot of attention today. What are the implications of these
figures? Does it mean that these kids are using these hard drugs like
heroin and cocaine, themselves?

JOSEPH CALIFANO: I think the implication is certainly that. The implication
also is that these drugs, like cocaine and heroin and acid, are moving down
to younger and younger children.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Excuse me just one second. Isn’t it possible that
when asked the question do you know anybody that used it, they could be
talking about an older, very much older friend, or sibling?

JOSEPH CALIFANO: A friend, but not a classmate. Unfortunately, we didn’t
break out friends and classmates in the question. But to the extent that
their classmates are involved, there’s also other evidence that drugs and
substance abuse generally is beginning at younger and younger ages for
American kids. Our work and, indeed, the government figures that were
released last week indicate, for example, that the first use of cocaine,
marijuana, daily cigarette smoking, and hallucinogens is at younger and
younger ages. By and large, kids are using these substances at the youngest
ages ever. And that’s very disturbing.

Conflicting numbers?

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I’m glad you brought up the study last week because
we reported that on the NewsHour and I wanted you to explain this to us,
because that study indicated that drug use between the ages of 12 and 17
was actually holding steady, or even going down in some cases.

JOSEPH CALIFANO: Well, it indicated that overall drug use was holding
steady, with respect to illicit drugs going down slightly, and that
marijuana use was about level. What we’re talking about is the age at which
kids initiate firstuse drugs, first binge drink, for example, and first
become daily smokers. Those ages are the lowest that they’ve ever been in
the history of this country. We have a situation, for example, in which we
have a million eighth graders who admit that they have been binge drinking.
We have a situation in which we have kids smoking on a daily basis at
younger ages than ever before, and we had a large proportion of eighth
gradersabout 17 or 18 percentsaying I had my first cigarette in the
fifth grade.

I also think it’s important to note when we start talking about
12yearolds, you know, we’re really talking in many cases about sixth and
seventh grade kids. And this is disturbing because the work we’ve done at
CASA, at the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, at Columbia
University indicates that the younger a child uses drugs and the more
frequently a child uses drugs or drinks or smokes cigarettes, the more
likely it is that that child will severely damage or, indeed, destroy his
or her life.

What are the causes?

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I want to go into that in just a second, but first on
the question of the age of initiation being so much younger, why is this
happening?

JOSEPH CALIFANO: Well, we really don’t know. I mean, I think that there are
a lot of factors involved here. I mean, one, there’s, you know, in the
culture of our society we have gone through for girls more than boys, for
example, a heroin chic look, and remember

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You’re talking about models that are really thin and
holloweyed and look like

JOSEPH CALIFANO: Yes. And consciously develop like that, and you have to
remember, you know, Vogue is the magazine that a large proportion of
readers are 12 and 13 year old girls, for example. Secondly, the baby
boomer parents, many of them are very ambivalent about marijuana use
because of their own experiences when they were in their 20's. And this
ambivalence gets down to their kids. Thirdly, we had a tremendous increase
in smoking in movies. It’s back the way it was in the 30's in many
respects, and the 40's, in which everybody lights up a cigarette. And who
goes to movies? I mean, you know, young teens are a big part of the movie
going population. And I think that there’s just a general cultural milieu
into which these kids are thrown. And that’s a big part of it. There’s
obviously peer pressure. That’s a part of it. But if you ask me precisely
why, the answer is I don’t think anybody knows precisely why.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, looking at the statistical relationship between
the smoking and drinking, or using marijuana and the harder stuff, explain
that. Your study brings up some biomedical discoveries that have been made.

JOSEPH CALIFANO: There are two aspects here. One, for two years we’ve been
working at Columbia to try and isolate smoking and drinking and marijuana
use from other problem behavior like carrying a weapon or promiscuous
sexual behavior, or fighting or truancy, or attempted suicides because most
of the correlations that are made don’t separate that out. We’re interested
in defining the smoking and drinking for a teenager in and of itself. I
mean, that it’s more likely that that teenager would use marijuana. And for
the first time we’ve now demonstrated by analyzing all the data and tapes
and the Center for Disease Control Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which
surveys about more than 10,000 teenagers, we’ve identified for the first
time that a teen who smokes and drinks, that alone is going to make it 30
times likelier that that teen will use marijuana. And a teen who drinks,
smokes, and uses marijuana in and of itself that activity is going to make
it 17 times likelier that that teen will use cocaine, heroin, acid, those
kinds of drugs.

The other point that I think is important is the biomedical point which you
raise. The biomedical point is we now have recent studies indicating that
nicotine and cocaine and heroin and alcohol have the same kinds of effects
on dopamine levels, which are the levels that give us pleasure, in the
pathways to the brain. So we now have both statistical and biomedical
evidence that makes it very important for us to substantially increase our
research and makes it clearone other thing makes it quite clear that
marijuana no longer deserves to be called a soft drug. We have one of those
recent studies indicates that marijuana is physically addictive, not simply
psychologically addictive, and the head of the National Institute of Drug
Abuse has indicated that there are more than 100,000 Americans, most of
them teens, in treatment because of marijuana use. So I think we’ve got to
call marijuana from now on a hard drug just like heroin and cocaine and acid.

"A battle that’s not going to be won or lost in Washington"

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: We don’t have a lot of time left, but what are you
recommending that Americans do about this?

JOSEPH CALIFANO: Well, I think the role for the government is greatly to
step up biomedical research, both in substance abuse and in adolescence.
Adolescence is the most neglected period of life. It’s very important that
we really spend money to learn how to influence teens and what they’re
going through. But by and large, most of the recommendations in the
Commission report are for parents, be involved in their kid’s life, you
know, go to the school activities, help them with their homework, pursue
religious activities together for schools, for churches. This battle is not
a battle that’s going to be won or lost in Washington. What we’re talking
about is something that’s going to be fought out over the kitchen table, in
the living room, in the classroom, in the schoolyard, in the church pew, in
the neighborhood. That’s where we’ve got to wage this and that’s where
we’ve got to deal with it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Mr. Califano, thanks for being with us.

JOSEPH CALIFANO: Thank you very much.