Pubdate: Sat, 10 Jan 2009
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Charles M. Blow
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)

COCAINE AND WHITE TEENS

Last month, President Bush touted the results of a 
government-sponsored study by the University of Michigan called 
Monitoring the Future. It reported a broad decline in drug use among 
young people since 2001. This included a 24 percent drop in the 
overall use of illicit drugs. There was one exception he said: abuse 
of painkillers. But, one important metric that wasn't mentioned, and 
that stubbornly resisted the downturn, was the use of cocaine.

According to data from the group that produced the report, the 
percentage of both black and white 12th graders who confessed to 
using cocaine in the past 30 days has essentially stayed flat since 
2001. The major difference is that white usage outweighs black usage 
4 to 1. (If you take a longer view back to 1991, when cocaine usage 
bottomed out following the outrageous '80s, usage among white 12th 
graders since then has nearly doubled, while usage among black 12th 
graders has fallen a bit.)

While we turned our attention to pills being swiped from parents' 
medicine cabinets, the number of youngsters snorting white lines 
continued virtually unabated, producing a striking consequence.

According to the most recent data from the Substance Abuse and Mental 
Health Services Administration, admissions of white teenagers to drug 
treatment centers for crack and cocaine abuse soared 76 percent from 
2001 to 2006. Crack and cocaine was the only illicit drug category in 
which the number of admissions for white teens grew over this period, 
and in 2006 the number was at its highest level since these data have 
been kept. By contrast, admissions among black teens for crack and 
cocaine over the same period held steady. By 2006, white admissions 
outnumbered those for blacks by more than 10 to 1. (It should be 
noted that admissions for white youths abusing painkillers in 2006, 
while growing, was still less than half the number of admissions for 
those abusing cocaine that year.)

And there are ominous signs. According to the Monitoring the Future 
study, the risk of using crack and cocaine, as perceived by 
teenagers, is going down. The newly released 2009 National Drug 
Threat Assessment puts it this way: "The decrease in perceived risk 
suggests that adolescents are becoming less wary of trying cocaine, 
which may sustain demand for the drug in the near future."

But, in a phone interview, David Murray, chief scientist in the White 
House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, insisted that there 
was good news: a sharp rise in the price of cocaine and a drop in its 
purity since 2006, among other things, have cut into overall usage.

So, I thought, until policy makers put more of a focus on this issue 
and figure out how to reach these students, should we just hope that 
teens are too broke for this weak coke? I don't think so. We need a 
real strategy, right now.