L.A. Children More Open to Drug Use, Study Finds : Attitudes: Youths here less likely than peers elsewhere to see narcotics as harmful. Media, crime, poverty cited.

The message seeps through as early as elementary school: Drugs are cool; they’re happening; they’re like, basically, OK.

The music sung by popular bands, such as the Black Crows, Ziggy Marley and Cypress Hill, says so. So do television shows, like the “Roseanne” episode featuring the star and her TV husband smoking a joint in the bathroom and waxing fondly about the hazy old days.

The message comes through the success of public figures, such as Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, who rose to national prominence despite adolescent turns with marijuana. And from parents who smoked dope growing up and think casual use is no big deal.

But in Los Angeles County, that message appears to blare louder--and sink in more deeply--than anywhere else in the country, including New York City.

Children and teen-agers in Los Angeles County are less likely than their peers nationally to believe that using drugs is harmful, and they are significantly more likely to experiment with drugs, a new study of 5,700 youths in 72 schools countywide shows.

“If these drug-related attitudes don’t change, the drug problem in Southern California will surely get worse,” said James E. Burke, chairman of the national Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which will release the study today.

“Since attitudes drive behavior, more children and teen-agers in Los Angeles will be willing to initiate drug use in the near future unless we’re able to change the way kids think and feel about drugs,” he said.

Why Los Angeles youths are more open to drug use is a complicated issue. The coalition believes that media messages are a major factor shaping teen-agers’ attitudes toward drugs, especially in Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood image makers.

Other experts say the reasons local youths are more susceptible are complex and related to the region’s high crime and poverty rates. And the area’s dominant modes of drug prevention education --including the nationally acclaimed DARE program--lack comprehensiveness and use teaching methods that research shows are ineffective, one expert says.

To counter the powerful messages youths receive and head off what it believes is an increasingly powerful wave of drug use sweeping through Southern California’s youth culture, the partnership--which has for many years run highly recognizable anti-drug ads nationally--today will begin a radio, television, billboard and newspaper advertising campaign aimed specifically at Southern California.

Launching the campaign--which will rely on donated advertising space and air time--will be an anti-heroin billboard erected over the Viper Room, where popular young actor River Phoenix suffered a fatal drug overdose in 1993.

Carroll O’Connor, the veteran TV star whose son, Hugh, died this year in a drug-related suicide, is lending his name to the campaign and urging media outlets to support the effort. “The loss of my boy Hugh has made it painfully clear to me just how vitally important it is to communicate with kids about the danger of drugs, and to educate parents on the subject of drug abuse,” he said.

A similar campaign the partnership ran in New York beginning in 1992 succeeded in persuading more children and preteens to view drugs as risky and fewer to think using drugs would make them “cool,” according to a survey the group did of attitudes there this year.

The Los Angeles study was based on self-administered anonymous questionnaires, given to public and parochial school students, measuring attitudes and use.

It showed that Los Angeles County youths believe that drugs are part of everyday life, with 40% of children between 9 and 12 years old expressing the view that “everyone uses drugs.” Nationally, only 26% of schoolchildren hold that perception.

Los Angeles children and teen-agers also are more likely than their peers nationally to minimize the dangers of heroin, inhalants and crack; they are slightly more likely to think it’s OK to hang around drug users; they are more likely to think most people can kick drugs if they choose to, and they are more worried about the pressure to try drugs and find it harder to say “no.”

In an indication that attitudes are related to behavior, they are more likely to have used inhalants, cocaine and crack than their counterparts nationally and just as likely to have used marijuana.

The survey found that Latino teen-agers, who make up about half the county’s teen-age population, perceive less risk in experimenting with cocaine and crack than teen-agers from other racial and ethnic groups. They are twice as likely to have used cocaine in the past year as other teen-agers.

The county’s white and Latino teen-agers had the highest rates of inhalant use in the past year. Asian youths here were least likely and African American teens most likely to have used marijuana in the past year.

Dr. Jonathan Fielding, professor of pediatrics and public health at UCLA and co-director of the university’s Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, said the research “sounds a serious warning. . . .”

“When one sees that the receptivity to drugs and drug use behavior and perceptions . . . is so widespread, these are the antecedents of violence, of kids who drop out of school,” he said. “It really should sound an alarm to say we need a combination of efforts that have been shown to make a difference.”

The survey found that school is the main source of information about drugs for most children. In California, experts say the dominant anti-drug methods used on campus are DARE and a commercial program called “Here’s Looking at You.”

Luanne Rohrbach, a research assistant professor at USC’s Institute for Prevention Research, said there is scant evidence that either program is effective.

“We do know what works,” she said. “They are models that focus primarily on social influence to use drugs, that emphasize peer pressure, what it is and how to deal with it. They are not just a teacher or police officer saying, ‘Look kids, drugs are dangerous,’ but a series of role-playing, group discussions.”

Nationally, regular use of cocaine has plummeted 75% since 1985 and regular use of marijuana is way down as well. But the attitudes among youth show that drugs are poised to make a comeback.

DARE--Drug Abuse Resistance Education--the nationwide school-based program started by the Los Angeles Police Department, exposes children beginning in fifth grade to a 17-week curriculum that focuses on the problems created by drug use and tries to dispel the notion that everyone gets high.

Patrick Froehle, DARE’s West Coast deputy director, said the attitudes revealed by the survey do not indicate the program is ineffective. No one program will make the difference, he said, adding, “You just can’t let up. We have to get focused again, that the drug problem has not gone away.”

On Los Angeles’ campuses, marijuana--known in the parlance of youth as “bud”--and talk of marijuana are everywhere, said Samuel, a student at Sun Valley Junior High School who has been caught smoking it on campus.

“You hear about it everywhere, from your friends, on TV, radio, your parents,” he said. “It’s part of growing up these days.”

Samuel, not his real name, is one of about 300 Sun Valley students who participate in a program that gives them an hour a week to talk about a wide range of personal problems, including drug abuse.

Sitting in a circle Wednesday, 10 of the program’s students painted a picture of a youth culture suffused with marijuana. Rap songs refer to getting high in their titles. Heroes on campus include 1960s rock legend Jimi Hendrix, whose life was cut short by drugs.

Some parents even smoke dope with their kids or supply them with it for parties, the students say. Rarely, however, do parents talk to their children about the potential dangers of drugs.

“It just doesn’t come up,” said one, who admitted smoking “bud.”

Despite intense pressure to use drugs, many manage to avoid getting involved. Those who do say they have a friend or a group of friends as a safety net.

The drug partnership survey found that Los Angeles teen-agers are more likely than their peers across the country to think getting high is an escape from problems rather than a way to have fun.

The survey acknowledged that drug use among young people is nowhere near the peaks of earlier years, but that marijuana is increasingly popular.

Lee Saltz, who heads a drug counseling program for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said the smell of marijuana smoke can be detected on most campuses.

“I’ve never seen so much pot use and never seen it so much in the open,” she said.

She offered a less than sanguine view of what can be done. Federal funds for treatment and counseling are being slashed and young people whose home lives are in turmoil or feel afraid in their neighborhoods are less likely to have the ability to say no when they are offered drugs, she said.

The release of the survey and the announcement of the campaign come one day after the release of another study profiling California’s substance abuse prevention and treatment efforts.

That report, by a Washington, D.C.-based public policy group called Drug Strategies, found that the state has increased its spending on such programs and has successfully reduced driving under the influence of alcohol and smoking among adults through pervasive advertising and treatment efforts.

But the report said that no similar effort has been focused on teen-agers and that use of marijuana, inhalants and cocaine is on the rise among teen-agers statewide.

Times education writer Elaine Woo contributed to this story.

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A Culture of Drugs

A survey done this spring by Drug-Free Southern California found Los Angeles County youth are more likely than their peers in other cities to use drugs and less likely to consider them dangerous. Some specific findings:

Percentage of children in grades four through six who worry that they might want to try drugs some time:

Los Angeles: 45%

New York: 35%

Nationwide: 33%

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Percentage of children ages 9 through 12 who believe that everyone tries drugs

Los Angeles County: 40%

Nationwide: 26%

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One of five Los Angeles County youths between 13 and 18 reported using marijuana in the previous month and one in three had used it within the past year. High percentage of teen-agers also believe:

Believe marijuana is “everywhere”: 86%

Most teen-agers will try marijuana: 82%

Think music makes marijuana use seem cool: 49%

Source: An April, 1995 survey of 5,737 Los Angeles County students in grades four through 12, conducted via anonymous questionnaire by Drug-Free Southern California, compared to results from a 1995 national survey by Partnership For a Drug-Free America.