EASIER TO GET A TOKE THAN A SMOKE ON SCHOOL GROUNDS, TEEN POLL FINDS

OTTAWA - Marijuana is perceived as easier to access than cigarettes on
Canadian school grounds, a newly released government report on teenagers
shows.

The report said the easier access to marijuana is due, ironically, to the
legal age limit for smoking cigarettes and the fact that you have to buy
cigarettes through traditional outlets, such as corner stores.

Commissioned by Health Canada, the report is part of the department's effort
to develop coping and refusal skills among teenagers. Based on focus groups
held across the country, it also states that marijuana use is perceived
among Canadian teens to be less harmful than cigarettes, because of the
effective messages on the health effects of cigarettes and second-hand smoke
relative to those of marijuana.

"Participants generally felt that the only exposure they had received on
issues dealing with marijuana were communications on the legalization of the
substance or the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes," said the report.

It said the teens in the focus groups had a genuine sense that those who
were marijuana smokers do not know the adverse effects of the substance
"aside from killing brain cells or making 'users' lazy" and do not
understand the health reasons why they should stop smoking it.

A poll released in November found that almost 30 per cent of Canadian 15- to
17-year-olds and 47 per cent of 18- and 19-year-olds had used marijuana in
the last year.

Prepared by Millward Brown Goldfarb, the report divided groups into three
age categories -- 10-12, 13-15 and 16-19.

Paul Dufresne, a spokesman for Health Canada, said the department is
following the $56,000 report's recommendation to create separate messages
regarding smoking tobacco and marijuana "because teens perceive them as two
different things."