Pubdate: Sun, 6 Apr 2008
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Page: A - 14
Copyright: 2008 The Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: David N. Goodman, Associated Press
Cited: Institute for Social Research http://www.isr.umich.edu/
Cited: NORML http://www.norml.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Monitoring+the+Future
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)

FUNDING AN EPIC STUDY OF DRUG HABITS

Researchers Given $33 Million Grant to Continue Useful Task

Hamburg Township, Mich. -- President Nixon may not have dented the 
nation's drug epidemic when he named Elvis Presley a "federal agent 
at large" in the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in 1970.

But a $120 million research program born during the Nixon 
administration continues to shape America's drug policies.

And it all started with a 33-year-old psychology graduate student's 
bold plan to poll thousands of teens nationwide each year about their 
drug habits and beliefs at a time when reefer madness had them in its grip.

Lloyd Johnston, now 67, still runs that study from the University of 
Michigan's Institute for Social Research. His group recently was 
awarded a $33 million National Institute on Drug Abuse grant to 
continue through 2012.

"It's just unparalleled in its importance in our field," said Tom 
Hendrick, founding director of the Partnership for a Drug Free 
America - the group created the iconic TV ads showing a frying egg 
and a narrator who says, "This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?"

The study owes its birth to Nixon drug czar Dr. Robert DuPont, who 
read Johnston's 1973 book "Drugs and American Youth" and invited the 
research assistant to Washington to brief his staff. Johnston pitched 
DuPont the idea he and colleague Jerald Bachman dreamed up of asking 
teens across the country about their drug, alcohol and tobacco habits 
and attitudes.

DuPont was hooked, and secured funding for the first "Monitoring the 
Future" study.

"I said, 'We've got to do this, and Lloyd is the guy to do it,"' said 
DuPont, a psychiatrist and head of the Institute for Behavior and 
Health in Rockville, Md.

The project was approved in August 1974 and the first surveys were 
conducted of 17,000 students the following spring.

Released in late 1975, the results gave the nation a first 
comprehensive look at what its children were smoking, popping and 
drinking: 40 percent of high school seniors had used marijuana in the 
past 12 months and 45 percent had taken an illicit drug in that time.

 From the start, the annual studies drew intense media coverage, 
Johnston said from the airy lakeside home 15 miles north of campus 
that he shares with his wife and daughter.

"NBC put on a one-hour special called, 'Reading, Writing and Reefer,' 
" said Johnston, a Harvard MBA. It "had a few talking heads like me" 
and lots of "kids who were heavy dope users."

"Anybody who was viewing the program could see that they weren't 
functioning right cognitively," he said. "I think it was one of the 
most effective prevention tools."

Teens' perception of the physical and psychological risks of 
marijuana began rising and their use rates started falling, the 
studies found. Twelfth graders' marijuana use peaked in 1979 at 51 
percent, and stood at 32 percent last year.

"Because Americans took action, today there are an estimated 860,000 
fewer children using drugs than six years ago," President Bush said 
at a December White House address announcing the Michigan study's 
2007 findings.

The 45-minute confidential questionnaires now are given to 50,000 
students in eighth, 10th and 12th grade each year, with cumulative 
data on more than 1 million students. With the $33 million grant, 
total funding has reached $120 million.

The Council of Europe began a similar study 15 years ago - a project 
that now involves 45 countries. Around the world, researchers have 
drawn from the study methods used by Johnston's group.

"They are idols for some of us," Gerhard Gmel, a senior scientist at 
the Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems, 
said from Lausanne, Switzerland.

Even a leading voice for legalizing marijuana expressed "high esteem" 
for Johnston's work.

"Johnston cannot be controlled, cannot be manipulated in the way 
other federal researchers can," said Allen St. Pierre, executive 
director of NORML, a non-profit public-interest lobby.

Thirty-three years of data have convinced Johnston that the single 
best way to cut teen drug abuse is to get information on drug dangers 
into the hands of teens. Focusing primarily on cutting supply won't 
work, he said.
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