Wasted Youth

The War on Drugs is not the kind of battle ever won outright, but rather refought with every new generation, even every fresh school class. A new survey of 50,000 American youngsters by researchers at the University of Michigan indicates that drug use seems to be steadily declining among high school students but finds, disturbingly, that the opposite is true among eighth-graders. The results indicate that in 1992, 9.5% of eighth-graders (up from 9% in a similar survey in 1991) used inhalants -- glue, nitrous oxide, solvents and other such volatile substances; 7.2% (up from 6.2%) smoked marijuana or hashish, and 2.1% (up from 1.7%) of these 13-year-olds took LSD. The diminution of drug taking among older teenagers (the percentage of 12th- graders who had smoked marijuana, for example, fell from 23.9% to 21.9%) suggested that while the relentless antidrug line in schools and on TV may be having an impact, many younger kids seem not to be getting the message.

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CREDIT: [TMFONT 1 d #666666 d {Source: University of Michigan}]CAPTION: Junior High Drugs