This survey covers a broad spectrum of socio-economic classes, cultural diversity and other factors that could have made the findings spurious.

TEENAGERS MISJUDGE DRUG USE

Survey Shows Figures Are Lower Than Students Think

Drug and alcohol use by students at Palo Alto's public high schools and middle schools is not nearly as high as students think it is, a survey that drew responses from 75 percent of those students showed.

Leaders of the community group that sponsored the survey hope to use the results to reach "the kids who are saying, everybody's doing it so I will, too," said Becky Beacom, the health education manager for the Palo Alto Medical Foundation.

The anonymous survey of 4,062 students at Palo Alto's two high schools and three middle schools leaves no doubt that some students drink alcohol and smoke pot. Twenty-eight percent of the high school students said they have a drink in a typical month, and 28 percent have smoked marijuana. Twenty-one percent use tobacco.

But, Beacom said, turning those statistics around demonstrates that most students neither drink nor smoke pot or cigarettes -- and students don't understand that. The survey revealed the majority of students think that drinking and drug use is the social norm, that "it's skyrocketing, it's horrible," Beacom said.

That misperception "can actually increase teen substance use, as adolescents feel pressured to conform to what they believe is the norm -- even if that belief is wrong," Beacom said.