Pubdate: Sat, 24 Nov 2012
Source: Edmonton Journal (CN AB)
Copyright: 2012 The Edmonton Journal
Website: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/134
Author: Joanne Laucius
Page: C3

MORE TEENS USING POT, STUDY FINDS

OTTAWA - Twice as many students in Grades 7 to 12 reported lighting up
a marijuana joint as lighting up a cigarette in Ottawa last year.

About one per cent said they used marijuana every day. About four per
cent said they had used it in the past week. And 15 per cent said they
had used it in the past four weeks. About three per cent of the total
teen population of Ottawa reports some signs of a cannabis dependency
problem, issues like feeling anxious without cannabis, or wishing they
could stop.

The Ontario Student Drug Use Survey began in 1977 and is done every
two years.

Ottawa students have always been included, but beginning in 2009 and
again in 2011, more than 1,000 extra Ottawa students were surveyed
because Ottawa Public Health wanted to get enough information to track
trends over time and compare different populations of students.

"Since alcohol and marijuana are the most commonly-used substances
among youth, it's important to follow the trends over time," says
Jacqueline Willmore, an epidemiologist with Ottawa Public Health.

For example, across the province, students are more likely to use
marijuana now than they were in the early 1990s. The question is
whether the 1990s were a blip or increased cannabis use is a long-term
trend.

Does the fact that more students use marijuana than cigarettes mean
that youth are replacing tobacco with pot, for example? Not likely,
says Willmore. "Teen cigarette smoking has been going down for the
past several years," she says.

"But I don't think cigarette smoking is being replaced with
cannabis."

Here's what the survey of Ottawa students found:

A significantly higher proportion of students in Grades 9 to 12
reported cannabis use compared to students in Grades 7 and 8. Cannabis
use is relatively rare among students in Grades 7 and 8, and peaks at
41 per cent among Grade 12 students.

In 2011, students in Grades 9 to 12 in Ottawa were more likely to
report cannabis use than in 2009 - 32 per cent in 2011 compared to 22
per cent in 2009.

Ottawa Public Health says it has to do more years of data collection
before it's possible to say whether this is the beginning of a trend,
or an anomaly.

Rates of cannabis use were no different between Ottawa and the rest of
Ontario, or between boys and girls. Students in Toronto were among
those in the province least likely to use marijuana.

Teen drug use is nothing new. But the drugs teens use have varied over
time.

"Until about five years ago, the No. 1 drug was alcohol, the No. 2 was
marijuana. Now the No. 1 drug is marijuana, and the No. 2 is alcohol,"
says Paul Welsh, executive director of Rideau-wood Addiction & Family
Services, whose counsellors see some 1,400 students a year though
school-based counselling programs at 49 Ottawa region high schools.

Welsh can only speculate as to why this is happening.

"If you go to school drunk, you'll get caught. If you go to school
stoned, it will be less noticeable," he says.

While more teens are shying away from harder drugs, parents and
schools have raised a lot of concern recently about marijuana use
among teens in Grades 7 and 8.

It's difficult to tell if there is more marijuana use among young
teens or if parents are noticing it more, he says.

"Clients are coming to us in worse and worse shape. It's related to
all kinds of things - cuts to education, health care, welfare. We're
seeing what happens downstream when services are cut to a population.
The Ministry of Health is concerned about the number of people who end
up at the emergency," says Welsh.

- - Ottawa Citizen
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MAP posted-by: Matt