IN 1996, THERE were approximately twenty-two million teenagers in the United States, and according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 13.3 percent of them used illicit drugs regularly. A study conducted by the National Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education (PRIDE) puts the number of high school seniors who use illicit drugs on a weekly basis as high as 20 percent. The survey found that since 1992, teenage drug use has increased 105 percent, with a 33 percent jump between 1994 and 1995 alone. By the year 2000, if current rates continue, drug use among teens will match peak levels reached in 1979.

American teenagers abuse drugs more than teens in any other country in the world, and the federal government is currently under fire for allowing the problem to get so out of control. The strict antidrug laws adopted at the start of the "war on drugs" focused on cutting the supply of illegal drugs...