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World News Wire |
Teen heroin use jumps in U.S., Illinois
December 8, 1998
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Heroin use has risen rapidly in recent years among U.S. teens, who have discovered they can snort rather than shoot the drug to get high, experts say.
The proportion of American 12th-graders who had used heroin rose from 0.9 percent in 1990 to 2.1 percent in 1997, according to a review of data published in the December issue of Pediatrics.
In Illinois, 2.2 percent of high school sophomores reported using heroin at least once in their lifetime in 1997, compared with 1.8 percent in 1990, according to survey results from the Illinois Department of Human Services.
Of all Illinois teens surveyed in 1997, 1.8 percent reported using heroin at least once, compared with 1.6 percent in 1990.
In Cook County, the number of high school students who reported using heroin once in their lives remained at 2.0 percent for 1990 and 1997, though the number rose for 10th-graders--from 2.1 percent in 1990 to 2.5 percent in 1997.
While the overall share of adolescents using the drug remains low, the highly addictive nature of heroin and the devastating consequences of getting hooked make the trend troubling, said the Pediatrics report's author, Dr. Richard H. Schwartz of the Inova Hospital for Children in Falls Church, Va.
Dr. Alan I. Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, agreed, but said the increase in heroin use is similar to that observed for cocaine and appears to be leveling off.
``There's been an increase in purity of heroin on the street, and that increase in purity is drawing a generation of heroin sniffers, snorters, intranasal users, rather than injectors,'' Leshner said.
``They foolishly think if you don't inject it, it's not addicting, which is incredibly wrong,'' he added. ``And so you're seeing middle-class, upper middle-class yuppies using heroin, where five years ago, they wouldn't go near it.''
Leshner said he worries more about alcohol, tobacco and marijuana use by youths because they are all addictive and represent bigger health threats.
``A young person drinking alcohol is at tremendous risk. A young person smoking cigarettes is at tremendous risk--of being addicted and then having a lifetime of health problems that are tied to it,'' he said.
Contributing: Alex Rodriguez
Copyright 1998 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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