This year's survey shows that message is getting through. This is good news. Because in 1998, we still had 1.1 million young people dependent on drugs. And that's 1.1 million too many. Let me also say a few words about alcohol.
Alcohol is still the drug of choice for young people.
There is both good news and bad news about alcohol in this year's survey. The good news is that use of alcohol by Americans 12 and older did not increase over the last year, and has in fact remained stable for some time. When I was at the University of Wisconsin, I lost more sleep worrying about underage drinking than anything else. There were over 10 million current drinkers ages 12 to 20 in 1998 - about half of whom were binge drinkers, meaning they had five or more drinks on the same occasion at least once in the past month. We can do better than that.