This research also takes the widely held perception that teens who are depressed engage in risky behaviors as acts of "self-medication," and suggests that depression can also be the consequence, not just the cause, of experimentation our culture regards as both morally deviant and normal.

"Adolescents do the things adolescents do," says Martha Waller of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation at Chapel Hill, N.C.

Waller is the lead researcher of a study recently published in "Archives of Women's Mental Health" and immediately distributed by mental health agencies nationwide. Once a high school teacher, Waller knows it's the rare adolescent who never tries a cigarette, drinks alcohol, inhales marijuana or becomes sexually active to some degree.

These activities may be "developmentally appropriate" in our culture, but at the same time, each carries risk.

"Abstainers," as she calls them, who avoid the risk by avoiding the behavior, actually come to be regarded as "abnormal" as they reach upper teens, where "they certainly become the minority."

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