May Be Getting the Drug Message

Ask any high school student where to get drugs, and chances are he or she will have a ready answer. According to a recent federal survey of 17,000 high school seniors, 58.7% of the participants--an all-time high--said that cocaine would be “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get, and more than 80% said the same about marijuana. Fortunately, it looks as if the increased availability is not translating into greater use.

In fact, the National Institute of Drug Abuse’s annual survey concluded that drug use has dropped to the lowest level in 15 years. Only 35.4% of the survey participants admitted using drugs within the last year. Although that percentage--roughly one out of three high school seniors--is alarming, it is the lowest since the University of Michigan’s Institute of Social Research began conducting the annual study in 1975. Ten years ago, twice as many high school seniors reported using illegal drugs regularly. This suggests that while the heavy emphasis on law enforcement and interdiction has failed to curb the supply of drugs, something is working to curb demand.

Perhaps drug education is playing an important role, because the survey also found an increase in the percentage of students who believe drugs can hurt them. Nearly 80%--another survey high--believe that smoking marijuana is harmful. Nearly 60% believe that trying cocaine even once or twice can harm them. The risk barometer indicates a healthier respect for the dangers of drugs. That’s an important concession for young people, who often tend to believe they are invincible.

Sadly, not all the news in the survey is promising. Youngsters continue to use crack, the highly addictive form of smokable cocaine, at about the same rate as the previous year. Almost 1.5% of the high school seniors said they had used the dangerous street drug at least once during the preceding month, an indication of regular use. Nearly 5% said that they had tried it at least one time. What’s scary about these numbers is that they indicate reasonably successful youngsters--high school seniors--are using a drug more commonly associated with hard-core dropouts.

Dropouts, a population at greater risk for drug use, are not surveyed, and drug use may be vastly underestimated without those figures. Even so, the national survey remains valuable because of the trends it helps identify. The apparent decline in use suggests that teen-agers are paying attention to the education programs and advertisements designed to alert them to the dangers of drug use. The lesson must not be lost on federal drug czar William Bennett, who appears to believe that tough law enforcement is the way to win the drug war. Maybe. But at least as much emphasis must be put on education.