A RealAudio version of a panel discussion how teen drug use can be curbed is available. A NewsHour backgrounder on the rise in teen drug use between 1992 and 1995. Now, a Newsmaker interview with Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the director of the National Drug Control Policy Office. Good to be here, Margaret. Well, Donna Shalala and I wanted to go to a Boys and Girls Clubs of America location to really make the statement that drug use among youngsters has doubled, and perhaps even more worrisome, it's beginning at an earlier and earlier age.
Sixth grade is the onset of exposure to drugs in America.
We ve got a parent cohort now, many of whom, you know, if you re white and you re between 26 and 34, more than 60 percent of that age group have used illegal drugs. So they re trying to sort out what do we say to our children, and that s really the focus of the national drug strategy. Are you suggesting that these kids today are the sons and daughters of baby boomers, many of whom use drugs, and that somehow it s the atmosphere in the home, the attitude in the home. Well, I think at the end of the day the most important source of information to young people are parents, you know, can be reinforced by consistency of the message from school teachers or from community coalitions, or, you know, public service announcements by Partnership for a Drug Free America. But parents are the ones who have the dominant voice, and they ve got to talk to their kids about drug use.