Addiction research suggests just saying no is not enough

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 22, 1997 | by Cheryl Wetzstein

New studies indicate that are using more drugs at a younger age. The research also shows that tobacco, alcohol and marijuana are 'gateways' to harder drugs such as heroin.

America's children are being introduced to drugs, alcohol and tobacco at increasingly younger ages, signaling a growing entrenchment of these addictions, according to one of several recent reports by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, or CASA, at Columbia University. The number of teenagers who know someone who does a "hard drug" -- heroin, cocaine or LSD -- also is growing.

CASA's sobering news appeared to contradict a recent federal report that teen use of illicit drugs, alcohol and smokeless tobacco dropped in 1996. "There's a glimmer of hope here," said Health and Human Services Secretary Donna E. Shalala about the 1996 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. The federal survey, which compiled answers from 18,300 Americans age 12 and older, was hailed as the country's first "tentative good news" on teens and drugs in four years.

But Shalala later issued a statement praising the CASA study for "reenforcing" the basic strategy of the Clinton administration: "to reach our youngsters with the truth substance abuse at a very early age." And retired Army Gen. Barry McCarrey, who heads the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, issued a statement calling the CASA study "another wake-up call that we have not changed youth attitudes about drugs, which, if unchecked, presage future use'"

CASA Chairman Joseph A. Califano Jr., who held Shalala's job during the Carter administration, says that some of the CASA data are more recent than the federal study. A survey of more than 1,000 youths, for example, indicates that the percentage of Americans age 12 to 17 who know someone who uses heroin, cocaine or LSD jumped from 39 percent in 1996 to 56 percent this year. In an even more troubling snapshot, the percentage of 12-year-olds who know a hara-drug user more than doubled, from 10.6 percent in 1996 to 23.5 percent this year.

A separate two-year study by CASA's Commission on Substance Abuse Among America's Adolescents reviewed dozens of studies on teens and substance abuse and found:

* The peak times to begin smoking are in the sixth and seventh grades, when children are 1 1 and 12 years old.

* The percentage of 9- to 12-year-olds trying marijuana doubled from 2 percent in 1995 to 4 percent in 1996. These preteens also are increasing their experimentation with cocaine, with 2 percent using it in 1993 and 3 percent in 1996.

* Alcohol remains the drug of choice among teens, with binge drinking -- five drinks or more at a sitting -- increasing among eighth-graders.

The CASA commission study also found evidence that cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana are "gateway" drugs: People who use these substances are more likely to use heroin, cocaine or hallucinogens. Girls age 12 to 17 who drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes in the month before being surveyed were 30 times more likely to smoke marijuana than girls who didn't smoke or drink. Boys in that age group who used alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana within a month of being surveyed were 29 times likelier to use cocaine, heroin or a hallucinogen than boys who didn't smoke or drink.

Data from five years of CASA studies show that if a person can make it to age 21 without smoking, drinking or doing drugs, he or she is "virtually certain never to do so," according to Califano. CASA leaders are calling for the federal government to spend $1 billion on research into addictions, as well as research on adolescent health issues. They also recommend higher taxes on cigarettes and beer and asked the media, entertainment and advertising industries to stop glamorizing substance abuse.

Meanwhile, parents and other responsible adults are the best line of defense against teenage addiction, says Califano. "The battle will be won across the kitchen table, in the pews and in the schoolyards."