'Virgins are rare, drug use very common'

JUST four per cent of US adults are virgins, but a fifth have tried hard drugs such as cocaine and crack, a new study shows. What most alarms researchers is how young they start. "We still have a public health problem in that we still see a lot of adults reporting their sexual debut at a pretty young age," said Dr Kathryn Porter of the United States' National Centre for Health Statistics, who led the survey of more than 6,000 people. "That is an area of concern because risky sexual behaviours can result in sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies," she said in a telephone interview. Ninety-six per cent of US adults have engaged in some kind of sex - including oral and anal sex - by the age of 20, according to the study published today. The researchers believe they have one of the most honest assessments yet of sexual behaviour and drug use because they used a new method to do the survey. "They answered this in complete privacy," Porter said. "They have a headset on, they touch a computer screen. This is the first time we just looked at statistics for sexual behaviour and drug use alone." There were no surprises, Porter said, but what researchers already know is troubling. "Among non-Hispanic blacks, 28 per cent reported having first had sex before the age of 15," she said. The number was 14 per cent for whites.
The survey found Mexican-Americans were the most likely to report never having had any form of sex, with 24 per cent of men and 45 per cent of women in that group claiming to be virgins.
For all men, the median number of sexual partners was 6.8. "If you ask women, it is less - it is 3.7," Porter said. A history of drug use was most common among middle-aged adults. More than 19 per cent of those aged 20 to 29 said they had tried cocaine, crack or another street drug, excluding marijuana. This rose to 27 per cent for people aged 30 to 39 and nearly 26 per cent for those in their 40s. But just 9.6 per cent of those aged 50 to 59 acknowledged having ever tried street drugs.