STUDENT DRUG USE CONTINUES TO FALL

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, January 28, 1992                   TAG: 9201280174
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short
STUDENT DRUG USE CONTINUES TO FALL
Illegal drug use by high school and college students continued a decade-long decline in 1991, but overall use levels show "we've still got a way to go" in the fight against drugs, experts said Monday.
An annual survey said 29 percent of high school seniors last year said they had used an illegal drug in the previous year, down from 33 percent of seniors in 1990. The percentages were the same for college students.
"We have continued to make steady progress in dissuading our young people from being involved with illicit drugs," said Lloyd Johnston, principal investigator of the study and a social psychologist at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research.
"Still, the absolute levels of drug use, especially at the lower grades, remain a cause for concern and demonstrate that we've still got a way to go in the battle against drugs," he said.
Illegal drug use by high school students peaked in 1979, when 54 percent reported having used an illegal drug in the previous year. The peak for college students was 56 percent in 1980, the first year they were included in the survey.
Marijuana is by far the most widely used illegal drug for both groups of students, but the survey, which was financed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said alcohol and tobacco continue to be widely used by the groups surveyed.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB