We were dubbed the baby boomers, but after decades of influencing everything from music to public policy, the Peter Pan Generation might be more like it. Some of us simply refuse to grow up.

That forever-young attitude was underscored in two recent studies that show, doggone it, we refuse to act our age. We're engaging in the type of behavior we warn college kids about: smoking pot and drinking too much.

Our hair is graying, our hips are widening and we're struggling to touch our toes, but those who grew up during the freewheeling, drug-dealing 1960s and 1970s are still using recreational drugs at an alarming rate. The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that the number of fiftysomethings who admitted taking drugs in the previous year nearly doubled from 5.1 percent in 2002 to 9.4 percent in 2007.

That's a much higher rate for Americans in their 50s than in earlier eras -- and all the more striking given that illicit drug use in every other age group stayed the same or decreased.

The surge can't be blamed on new users. The figure has jumped because boomers -- those born between 1946 and 1964 -- have continued to dabble in drugs as they grow older. We are dragging the bad habits of our youth into retirement. The image of a white-haired, tie-dye-shirted gramps smoking a joint has elicited a snicker or two from friends, but the reality is no laughing matter. The substance-abuse office warns that older users run an increased risk of accidents, falls and injuries, compounding the strain aging boomers put on our health care system.

It's not just a toke here and there, either. We're also tossing 'em back at a prodigious clip. Researchers at the Duke University Medical Center found that 22 percent of men and 9 percent of women ages 50 to 64 reported binge drinking -- having five or more alcoholic drinks at a time -- within the past month. And I thought binging was purely a campus concern.

I could go on about how we should know better, how maturity should temper the foolishness -- and risk-taking -- of youth. I could even throw in a dollop of guilt -- something about providing a good example for our kids and grandkids. I suspect it wouldn't matter, though. My generation has always been stubbornly determined to do things our way, logic -- not to mention health and law -- be damned.

Consider an analysis by Scripps Howard News Service of death records for more than 300,000 boomers who checked out in 2003.

More died from drug abuse, suicide and accidents -- causes once thought to be the purview of the young -- than in previous years. Motorcycle deaths for riders over 40 more than tripled in a decade. Boomers also represented more than a third of suicides and half of all drug-related deaths, far out of proportion to our 26 percent share of the population.

Forty years ago we were known as the generation that didn't trust anyone over 30. Soon we may be remembered as the generation that couldn't be trusted to use the good sense that God gave us and grow up.

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