Canada's youth on top when it comes to pot use, study finds
By: Sheryl Ubelacker, Toronto Star (CN ON), 10-0604

More Canadian young people appear to be butting out when it comes to cigarettes, but a growing number of pot smokers have put Canada at the top of the international heap for marijuana use among young adolescents, a new study suggests.

"Canadian students are at the high end of using marijuana frequently," said William Boyce of Queens' University, principal investigator of the study on the health and well-being of the country's youth.

The 2002 study of 7,000 kids aged 11 to 15 from across Canada, released yesterday, found that about 40 per cent reported using marijuana in the previous year, about 3 per cent more than in Switzerland, second on the list of 35 countries conducting similar studies.

The Netherlands, where the sweet weed has long been decriminalized, was in the middle of the pack, said Boyce, a professor of community health at the Kingston university.

Questionnaires filled out by the Grade 6 to Grade10 students showed that 43 per cent of boys and 37 per cent of girls aged 11, 13 and 15 had used marijuana, up a couple of percentage points over an earlier study in 1998.

While the research didn't look at reasons for pot being favoured over tobacco, Boyce speculated that its increased use is tied to affordability, availability and acceptability.

"It's not so expensive, it's definitely available and with the legislation introduced in the last Parliament - and perhaps again in this one - that decriminalizes marijuana use, it certainly provides a signal to kids that this is not a highly illegal activity."

However, the picture for smoking is quite different. While tobacco use among boys has remained steady, there was a huge drop in the proportion of 15-year-old girls who reported smoking daily - to 11 per cent in 2002 from 21 per cent in 1998. As well, the percentages of girls who smoke only occasionally or had tried smoking for the first time were also down.

The study is the fourth in a series conducted by Queen's researchers and released by Health Canada since 1992.