Pubdate: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 Source: New York Times (NY) Copyright: 2006 The New York Times Company Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298 Author: Micah Cohen Referenced: The Monitoring the Future survey http://www.monitoringthefuture.org/data/06data.html#2006data-drugs ILLEGAL DRUG USE BY TEENAGERS IS ON DECLINE, U.S. STUDY FINDS WASHINGTON -- The percentage of teenagers using illegal drugs continued a decade-long decline in 2006, but the illicit use of prescription drugs remains worrying, according to a survey released Thursday by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. "I think we're seeing a generation that has gotten wiser about drugs," said Lloyd D. Johnston, the survey's principal investigator. But more attention, Dr. Johnston said, should be paid to prescription drug abuse. The survey showed a decline of 23 percent since 2001 in the percentage of students who said they had used "any illicit drug" in the month before taking the survey, with 14.9 percent saying they had used such drugs. The 32nd annual report was based on a survey of almost 50,000 students in the 8th, 10th, and 12th grades in more than 400 public and private schools nationwide. The survey was financed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and carried out by the University of Michigan. A question was added to the survey in 2002, asking students specifically about the recreational use of Vicodin and OxyContin, both narcotic drugs prescribed to treat pain. Since then, nonmedical use of those drugs has increased slightly, although abuse of OxyContin by eighth graders doubled to 2.6 percent in 2006, from 1.3 percent in 2002. "We're not changing the rate that prescription medications are being taken by young people," Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said. This 2006 survey asked for the first time whether the students used over-the-counter cough medicine. John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the response was alarming, with 4.2 percent of 8th graders, 5.3 percent of 10th graders and 6.9 percent of 12th graders saying they used nonprescription cough medicine recreationally. Because most drug abuse is declining among teenagers, and prescription drug abuse has remained stable, "prescription drug abuse represents a larger part of the total problem," said Dr. Johnston, who is program director at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Mr. Walters said, "Based on the trends we've seen with prescription drug abuse among teens, and corroborated by the results from this report, it's clear we need to start developing messages for young people about the dangers of misusing prescription drugs." In 1998, three years before Mr. Walters became director, the drug control policy office began the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign -- an effort to use multimedia messages to persuade adolescents to stay drug free. That campaign has not produced an advertisement warning about prescription drug abuse. The survey released Thursday also suggested that the continuous decline in daily smoking of cigarettes by 8th and 10th graders had ended, although the rate, which peaked in the mid-1990's, did not increase. "I hate to see that improvement stop, as it seems to be doing," Dr. Johnston said. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake