POT-SMOKING NOW PART OF ADULT LIFESTYLE IN ONTARIO

Average Age of User Increasing; Tobacco Use Down

TORONTO - More adults in Ontario are smoking marijuana than a decade
ago, and the average age of cannabis users is increasing, Dr. Jurgen
Rehm, senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
said Monday.

According to the CAHM annual survey of adult substance use, the number
of adults in Ontario who reported cannabis use over a one-year period
is up from eight per cent in 1977 to 14 per cent in 2005.

But more telling, said Rehm is the ageing of the cannabis user who now
is on average 31-years-old compared to 26-years-old in 1977. "For a
long time marijuana smoking was confined to a transitional
phenomenon," Rehm said. "But it now finds its way into an adult lifestyle."

Across Canada, the rate of marijuana use has been increasing,
according to a 2004 study by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse
(CCSA).

The percentage of Canadians over the age of 15 who reported cannabis
use at least once in the 2004 study was highest in B.C. at 16.8 per
cent and lowest in P.E.I at 10.7.

Meanwhile, the number of people who reported smoking cigarettes in
Ontario is the lowest on record, declining from 28 per cent in 1996 to
20 per cent in 2005 Rehm said, arguing the increase in cannabis use
points to the need for more education.

Rehm said marijuana use still remains infrequent for most adults with
only two per cent smoking at hazardous levels.