The Christian Science Monitor

While writing "Dirty: A Search for Answers Inside America's Teenage Drug Epidemic," Ms. Maran identified two types of children who do take drugs: those who "use" to have fun, and those who "abuse" because they see few reasons not to.

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"It seems incredibly simplistic, but most kids say they do it because it's fun, and they go on to lead normal, healthy lives," she says. "And then there are the kids who abuse drugs. And it's not just the traditional, 'Oh, teenagers think they're going to live forever.' It's actually the opposite."

Sometimes, the trouble, says Maran, lies with children who for whatever reason have been cut off from hope. They don't see a future that holds a place for them.

"Kids who are in trouble emotionally, culturally, vocationally, use drugs to harm themselves," she says. "They have a very astute social critique and see very little they want to be a part of."

Passion as an 'antidrug'

Curious about what keeps some kids away from drugs, Maran went looking for constants among those who'd never experimented, or who tried something once or twice but stopped. Passion, she found, and the belief in being able to make a difference in the world through that passion are possibly, the "antidrug" education experts have been looking for.

During the recent war in Iraq, Maran was thrilled to see kids out protesting - not because of their political views, but because they looked so committed to something.

"Talk about keeping kids off the streets," she says. "Put them in the streets behind a banner and you've got your problem solved. People need to feel that what they do is a contribution."

Today, Isabel Maremont doesn't hang out with the kids who smoke and drink. In fact, most adults would feel certain that Isabel, who lives in a stable, two-parent home in a comfortable suburb, should be a low risk for drug abuse.

A strong student, the ninth-grader has succeeded at almost everything she has tried in her young life and certainly has the kind of passion and sense of purpose Maran is talking about.

Just now, drug use has no appeal for Isabel. She'd rather curl up with a good book, she says, or hang out with her friends.

	ISABEL MAREMONT learned about the dangers of drug abuse in a sixth-grade antidrug program. But she confesses to some curiosity about drugs and the kids who use them. MELANIE STETSON FREEMAN - STAFF

But if she ever tries drugs, she imagines it will have something to do with the type of kids she hangs out with. "I don't hang around with [kids who use drugs] now," she says, "but I don't really know what they're like."

What may be hard for a young person like Isabel, say some experts, will be the day when drug use comes closer to her experience. Her sixth-grade antidrug education class taught her about overdoses, brain chemistry, quickened heart rates, and irreversible dependency.

But what was never mentioned in the class was the possibility that up close drug use might not look dangerous at all.

"One of the greatest epiphanies ... is the first hit, when you discover that you've been lied to," says Mr. Gray, who has long argued that failing to teach kids that drugs may feel good is more of a "gateway" than the drugs themselves.

"Kids reach high school and find out everybody's getting stoned behind the stadium after practice, and half are straight-A students," he says. "So the cops and the principal are totally wrong, and they become iconoclasts. And when somebody tells the kid to stay away from heroin, he assumes you're lying."

One of the most explosive debates in drug education is the question whether kids should be taught to fear even casual use.

Unlike sex education, where some students are taught abstinence with a footnote - if you do it, here's the safest way to do it - the message in drug education is to say no to everything.

Letting kids talk

Not allowing kids to talk openly about any desires they may feel to try drugs - including any interest in casual experimentation - widens the gulf between kids and adults, and kids turn to other sources of information, such as the Internet, Maran says.

Jordan Temple, for one, wishes adults would listen more and talk less, that they would stop trying to scare him and start letting him ask tough questions.

"Our teachers and parents make us think that drugs are scary," he says, "so then the drugs become part of our domain, something we don't talk about to them."

Parents actually have tremendous say in how their children behave, says Paul Brounstein, director of the division of knowledge applications and systems improvement at the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention in Silver Spring, Md.

But they need to talk to kids openly and honestly about both the powers and dangers of drugs, he says. Without such conversation, children may feel they are drifting further and further away from the adults around them.

"When kids feel they're doing something furtively, especially if it is illegal, like smoking marijuana, and they don't talk to their parents, it becomes a self-labeling thing," Dr. Brounstein says. "If they feel they need to hide what they're doing from people who hopefully have nurtured them, then they're going to continue that."

When adults and children fail to communicate honestly about a topic as pervasive in today's society as drugs, he says, an opportunity has been missed "to bond and understand each other, and to support each other."