MARIJUANA THE DRUG OF CHOICE FOR CANADIAN TEENS, STUDY SAYS

Queen's University Survey: Half Of Boys, 40% Of Girls In Grade 10 Have Toked

OTTAWA - More 15-year-olds have tried marijuana than have experimented with
a night of drinking, a national survey of Canadian teens shows.

Half of the boys and 40% of girls in Grade 10 said they have smoked pot,
according to the 2002 survey released yesterday and carried out by Queen's
University in partnership with Health Canada. This represents a doubling of
the rate since 1990 for boys, and a 16-point increase for girls, up from 24%.

It is also a reversal of the pattern in 1990, when the experience of
getting "really drunk" surpassed experimenting with marijuana.

Among 15-year old boys in 2002, 46% reported being "really drunk" at least
twice in their lifetime, down from 48 in 1990. Girls in Grade 10 dropped
three points in this period, from 45 to 42%, according to the sweeping
survey about the health of young teens completed every four years since 1990.

George Smith, 18, is part of this culture shift. The first-year student at
the University of Guelph, in Ontario, first tried marijuana in Grade 9, and
became a regular pot smoker the following year. Today, he still prefers
smoking up to getting drunk, although he smokes up less frequently than he
did as a 15 year old.

"I prefer the result of smoking so much more," Mr. Smith said.

Although pot smoking is on the rise, cigarette smoking has dropped off,
especially among girls. The survey found the percentage of Grade 10 girls
who smoked daily decreased to 11% in 2002, from 21% in 1994.

The drop among their male counterparts was negligible, from 16 to 15%.

The 2002 survey also shows the percentage of young teens having sex jumped
among girls from 17% in Grade 9 to 25% in Grade 10, and 19 to 27% among the
boys. At the same time, fewer of the older students reported using condoms.

Among the boys, condom use dropped from 73% in Grade 9 to 69% in Grade 10.
Sixty-eight% of the Grade 9 girls said their partners wore condoms,
compared with 67% of Grade 10 girls.

"It is worrisome that they seem to be using condoms less often as they get
older," said William Boyce, director of Queen's Social Program Evaluation
Group and editor of the 156-page report.

The use of a riskier method of contraception -- such as withdrawal --
increased.

In Grade 9, 10% of sexually active boys said they used withdrawal. By the
following year, it jumped to 14%. Among sexually active girls, 16% in Grade
9 and 23% in Grade 10 said they used withdrawal. "The older kids are taking
more risks," said Mr. Boyce.

Meanwhile, girls continue to enjoy school more than boys, but the number of
students of both sexes who said they liked school "a lot" has been dropping
steadily since 1994. A decade ago, 26% of girls in Grade 10 said they liked
school a lot, compared with 20% in 2002. Among boys, it decreased from 19
to 14%.

Twenty-one% of girls in Grade 8 said they liked school a lot in 2002, down
from 29 in 1994. Among boys, 20% said so in 1994, dropping to 16% in 2002.

In Grade 6, 46% of girls in 2002 said they liked school "a lot,"
significantly more than the 33% who said so in the 2002 survey. Among boys
in Grade 6, there was a drop to 24%, from 29%.

Further, in the 2002 survey more than one-third of both boys and girls aged
11 to 15 reported being bullied in the past couple of months, and more than
20% report being both bullies and victims. Boys who were bullied reported
more physical victimization, about 45%, than girls, 21%.

More than 7,000 students aged 11, 13 and 15 in grades 6 to 10 completed the
self-report questionnaire in classrooms. These three age groups were
included to capture the critical periods of early adolescent development.