Teen drug use drops, but there's still a lot of it

If Robert France ever had any doubts about whether to experiment with Ecstasy, the club drug known as the love drug, they were resolved at a recent party.

A girl there had taken her first Ecstasy pill and the warm feelings and confidence brought on by the mix of speed and hallucinogens was starting to take hold. Then things began to change. She got a little nervous, then scared, and then started acting "crazy." What she didn't know, was that someone had popped another Ecstasy pill into her liquor bottle.

"She started burning, they had to put her in the tub with some cold water and ice," says the lanky teen from the Bronx. "They couldn't call the hospital because her parents didn't know she was at the party."

The girl survived, and her experience became a cautionary tale for those at the party.

Today, the Bush administration will tout the 11 percent drop in teen drug use between 2001 and 2003 as it rolls out its annual Drug Control Strategy.

There's no question that there's a reason to celebrate, say experts. The causes for the drop, as Mr. France's story illustrates, are varied - they range from personal experience to an intense media campaign funded in part by the federal government. But experts worry that the good news may mask some troubling trends in the recreational drug culture.

"When drug use goes down we tend to forget that a new generation of drug users comes of age every year," says David Rosenbloom, executive director of Join Together, a substance abuse prevention network in Boston. "When our perception of harm goes down, drug use tends to go up."

In the past three years, frightening stories like the one told by France circulated in schools, were highlighted on "Oprah," and touted in TV ads. The combination has helped bring down the use of the once surging drug Ecstasy for the second straight year. A study released by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America last week found it was down 25 percent in 2003.

"Clearly, the drop in Ecstasy use reflects a change in attitudes," says Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of the Partnership, a non-profit drug prevention media program. "But we can't forget that 2 million teenagers in America still tried this drug last year - we can't take our eye off of it."

Experts credit the concerted efforts of the Partnership's focused and aggressive advertising and the Office of National Drug Control Policy support for the findings of the two recent surveys that report an overall drop in drug use from marijuana to methamphetamines for the second year in a row. And it finally has statistical significance. In 1998, 51 percent of all teens reported experimenting with an illegal drug. In 2003, it was down to 46 percent.

Call it the beginning of what could be a very good trend.

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