Washington - Adolescent who experiment a little whith drugs are not necessarily signaling that they have personal problems, according to a new study.

Rather, those who tested illegal drugs during adolescence tended to be healthier and better adjusted than those who abstained or than those who abuse drugs.Researchers said the finding was closely analogous to an earlier generation's experience with alcohol.

The study, published in the current issue of American Psychologist, the journal of the American Psychological Association, followed 101 girls and boys in the San Francisco area from nursery school to the age of 18, and gave them a battery of psychological tests at ages 3, 4, 5, 7, 11, 14 and 18.

"This absolutely does not mean that we are advocating drug experimentation or that using drugs could possibly be beneficial", said Jonathan Shedler, who conducted the study with Jack Block, a fellow psychologist from the University of California at Berkeley."What it does mean, though is that some adolescent experimentation is not necessarily catastrophic."