WEED TOPS TEEN BOOZING

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

Half the boys and 40 per cent of girls in Grade 10 said they've smoked
pot, according to the 2002 survey made public 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 per cent.

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 per cent 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 per
cent, according to the sweeping survey about the health of young teens
completed every four years since 1990.

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 per cent in 2002, from 21
per cent in 1994.

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

The 2002 survey also shows the percentage of young teens having sex
jumped among girls from 17 per cent in Grade 9 to 25 per cent in Grade
10, and to 27 per cent from 19 among the boys.

At the same time, fewer of the older students reported using
condoms.

Among the boys, condom use dropped from 73 per cent in Grade 9 to 69
per cent in Grade 10.