Smoking, ecstasy may be losing allure with kids.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

DETROIT _ Kids are apparently getting the message that cigarettes are increasingly passe and the club drug ecstasy isn't danger-free.

Smoking by young people declined significantly in 2001 while recent, dramatic increases in teen ecstasy use appeared to be slowing, according to an annual University of Michigan report released in late December.

The Monitoring the Future survey of 44,000 students nationwide found that a strong increase in teen smoking during the 1990s is reversing. In 1996, 21 percent of eighth-graders said they currently smoked _ meaning they had one or more cigarettes in the previous 30 days. This year, that number was 12.2 percent. Similar declines were reported for ...