November 22, 1999
From The New York Times
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By Christopher S. Wren

MORE TEENAGERS DISAPPROVE OF DRUG USE, SURVEY FINDS

Teen-age approval of marijuana and other illegal drugs has started declining, with fewer adolescents saying they consider drug use to be "cool," according to a national study being released Monday.

Forty percent of teen-agers surveyed agreed strongly that "kids who are really cool don't use drugs," compared with 35 percent who said so last year.

And the number agreeing strongly that "in my school, marijuana users are popular" dropped to 10 percent, from 17 percent last year. Among younger respondents, those 13 to 15 years old, only 8 percent said marijuana users were popular, compared with 13 percent in 1998.

The shift is potentially significant because such changes in attitude have become predictors of drug use. A government survey in August reported that drug use was leveling off among teen-agers. The new survey said experimentation with marijuana declined to 41 percent of those surveyed, compared with 42 percent in 1998 and 44 percent in 1997.
(Marijuananews note: This is within the margin of error.)
Experimentation with inhalants, methamphetamine, cocaine and LSD also dropped. Trial use of the drug ecstasy did not.

The survey was commissioned by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, a coalition of communications professionals who have created about 600 advertisements and commercials for a campaign that the government began in July 1998 to discourage adolescents from using drugs.
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The Ad Council Brags About Its Own Prostitution, But Business Is Business!
The partnership stopped short of attributing the change in attitudes to its role in the campaign, suggesting that the decline in social acceptance of drugs had broader importance.

"Across the board, in numerous statistical measures, teen-agers are disassociating drugs from critically important badges of teen identity," James E. Burke, the partnership's chairman, said in a statement.

"From a consumer-marketing standpoint, when this type of peer norm begins to develop, it's extremely encouraging," Burke said. "But it's too early to declare a major turnaround on drug-related attitudes and drug use."

Still, the study found teen-agers more aware of drugs and the risks they pose. Forty-five percent of the adolescents interviewed said they had seen or heard an advertisement against drugs at least once a day, compared with 32 percent in 1998, when the $195 million campaign was getting under way.

The Partnership Attitude Tracking Study, as the annual survey is called, was developed by Audits and Surveys Worldwide, a marketing research company in New York. It asked 6,529 adolescents in the seventh- through the 12th-grades to fill out a questionnaire on how they felt about drugs. The margin of error was plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.

More than half of the teen-agers interviewed said they had been offered drugs. But only 11 percent said it was difficult to reject a friend's invitation to try marijuana, compared with 14 percent in the previous four years.
(Marijuananews note: This is within the margin of error.)
And 41 percent of the teen-agers said they had tried to talk a friend out of using drugs, compared with 38 percent in 1998.
(Marijuananews note: This is within the margin of error.)
While some popular music has been criticized for glamorizing drugs, a minority of the adolescents, or 42 percent, agreed that rock and rap stars made drug use look tempting, compared with 48 percent in 1998.

In what the partnership called another encouraging development, 30 percent of the teen-agers said they had learned a lot about the risk of drugs from their parents, compared with 27 percent last year. The government's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign has also used advertisements to urge parents to talk with their children about the dangers of drug use.
(Marijuananews note: This is within the margin of error.)
Copyright: 1999 The New York Times Company

(Marijuananews note: The following are a few gems from the Partnership’s web site.)
From http://www.drugfreeamerica.org/newscenter/bulletins/bulletin1199.html#november99-6

Governor Bush Says Leave Medical Marijuana Issue To The States
(Marijuananews note: It is interesting that the PDFA is getting involved in partisan politics against the Republican front-runner.)
See
Bushlet Supports States’ Rights On Medical Marijuana;
At Odds With Party Leaders, The Anointed One Continues To Move To The Center.
Putting himself squarely at odds with many in his own party, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush says he thinks individual states should be free to decide whether to ban the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Bush says he's personally opposed to the idea of medical marijuana, but that every state should have the right to "make that decision as they so choose." The presidential front-runner's stance conflicts with the belief of many GOP lawmakers that legalizing marijuana for medical purposes undermines the nation's anti-drug efforts. Bush made his comments while campaigning in Washington, a state where voters already have passed a medical marijuana initiative. (Bush for President @ (512) 637-2000 or www.georgebush.com.)

Early Use Of Marijuana Leads To Problems Later
(Marijuananews note: The headline here implies causality, which the study itself does not appear to claim. Notice that the level of marijuana use that is five years antecedent to these problems was very low. It may be a warning sign, but it was very unlikely to be causal. However, the Partnership typically tries to create the impression that it is.)
The use of marijuana in early adolescence seems to increase the chances the user's life will be marked by multiple problems later. Researchers at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York say "problem behaviors" such as violence, an inability to appropriately function at work or school, dropping out of school and unsafe sex were found to be significantly increased among those adolescents who, five years earlier, had reported using marijuana at least once a month. The study's authors say effective treatment strategies need to be developed to stem current and future problems for early users. (Mount Sinai School of Medicine @ (212) 241-9200 or www.mountsinai.org)