Social Policy

Cigarettes Or Marijuana, Anti-Drug Efforts Not Impressing Teens

American teenagers are simply ignoring the federal government's expensive campaigns exhorting them to give up smoking marijuana. Critics ask if the proposed ad blitz against cigarettes -- costing tens of billions of additional dollars -- will not be a further waste of money, given the failure on marijuana.

  • The percentage of eighth graders who admit to smoking marijuana the previous month has tripled in surveys since 1991.

  • In 1991, some 30 percent of high school sophomores said trying marijuana once or twice posed a "great risk" -- a number that dropped to 20 percent by last year.

  • The proportion of 10th graders who report smoking cigarettes more than once in the past 30 days increased 40 percent since 1991 -- but similar marijuana usage is up 135 percent.

  • Over the same period, cigarette usage among 12th graders has increased 32 percent -- while marijuana usage has soared 72 percent.

Meanwhile, the federal government is preparing to roll out yet another anti-marijuana media blitz this summer -- this one costing nearly $200 million a year over five years.

Source: Editorial, "Inconsistency on 'Evil Weeds,'" Investor's Business Daily, April 23, 1998.


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