SURVEY OF DRUG, ALCOHOL USE IN YOUNG TEENS SHOWS EARLY EXPERIMENTATION RATES

22% of adolescents aged 12-15 had been drunk; 1 in 5 had smoked
marijuana

Statistics Canada's first study of alcohol and drug use among 12- to
15-year-olds has found four in 10 had consumed one alcoholic drink at
least once and about one in five (22 per cent) had been drunk.

About one-fifth (19 per cent) of the 4,296 respondents also reported
having smoked marijuana.

The younger adolescents were not asked about hallucinogens, but 11 per
cent of teens aged 14 and 15 reported having tried them.

The average age at which the youth had reported their first drink was
12.4 years, and they first got drunk on average at 13.2 years of age.
The average age for first-time marijuana use was slightly younger, at
13.1, and for experimenting with hallucinogens slightly older, at 13.8.

"Statistically, we wouldn't characterize it as common or an epidemic,"
said study co-author Dave Haans.

"Experimenting with alcohol and drugs in adolescence is fairly common.
One of the other ways at looking at our figures is the majority of
adolescents in our survey engaged in no substance use. It's a matter
of seeing the glass half-full or half-empty."

The survey found that the peer group emerged as the strongest risk
factor influencing the youth to use drugs or alcohol. But the study
also found hostile parenting styles -- characterized by nagging,
inconsistent enforcement of rules, threats and anger -- have an impact
on teen behaviour.

The researchers considered three aspects: Hostile parenting, parental
monitoring and parent-child cohesion.

Only young people whose parents had a negative or hostile parenting
style were found to have significantly high odds of drug use or
drinking to intoxication. The odds of being drunk and engaging in drug
use increased by a factor of about 1.1 for every point increase in the
hostile parenting scale.

But the study cautions against drawing any conclusions about cause and
effect.

The researchers also can't explain why the odds of using drugs were
nearly double for young adolescents in step-parent families compared
with those in traditional two-parent families.

"We didn't find the same relationship about alcohol use. We're not
entirely certain as to why that may be the case," said Mr. Haans.

The survey also bucked a trend found in other studies that suggest
high-risk behaviours may occur when youth feel stressed and seek
comfort, relief, or escape through drug use.

The data were collected in 1998/99 as part of a national long-term
survey of children and youth. More recent data sets have been
collected, but not yet analysed.