Study: Drugs cost U.S. $4 billion

By Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Young people are beginning to use drugs earlier and are increasingly likely to choose ecstasy and hallucinogens over marijuana and cocaine, according to a report to be released Friday by Brandeis University.

The report, which tracks drug- and alcohol-use trends over several decades, also indicates that drug use, alcohol consumption and smoking cost the United States more than $400 billion a year in health-care claims, lost productivity and criminal justice expenses.

The report was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropic group in Princeton, N.J., that supports health-care research. Analysts who reviewed hundreds of substance abuse studies linked one in four U.S. deaths to tobacco, alcohol or drug use.

Although overall levels of drug and alcohol use peaked in the 1970s and 1980s and have fallen substantially, some substances favored by teens are bucking the trend, the report says.

Alcohol remains the most commonly used substance among teens. Marijuana use, which rose among teens in the early 1990s, began to drop in 1996. And cocaine use, which peaked in the 1980s, also is down. The study calls ecstasy a "notable exception." It links the overall rise in heroin and hallucinogen use with the drugs' popularity among those younger than 26.

A decade ago, 14% of eighth-graders had tried illicit drugs other than marijuana. That percentage had risen to 16% by 2000, the report says.