SURVEY SAYS B.C. TEENS ARE DOING JUST FINE

B.C. Teens To Worried Grown-Ups: We're Cool.

A major survey of 30,500 B.C. high-school students shows they're smoking
fewer cigarettes, having sex later and leading healthier lives.

But in the McCreary Centre Society survey, conducted last spring, teens say
they're smoking more pot, binge-drinking and feeling unsafe at school.

"We're excited and proud of our kids in B.C.," said McCreary chairman Roger
Tonkin. "We think they've made some really good shifts, at a time when
everybody is telling them how terrible they are."

Among the results:

- - Smoking rates have declined. Only seven per cent are regular smokers,
compared to 15 per cent in 1998.

- - Nine out of 10 teens say they're in excellent health.

- - Marijuana use has dipped slightly to 37 per cent, but a third of boys say
they have smoked pot at least 100 times.

- - Alcohol use is down to 57 per cent, compared to 62 per cent in 1998.

- - Three-quarters of youth in grades 7 to 12 say they've never had sex.

Bonnie Leadbeater, director of the Centre for Addictions Research of B.C.,
said kids understand that cigarettes will harm them, but not marijuana.

"They're moving from cigarettes to marijuana, and there aren't clear
messages that marijuana harms," she said.

She said alcohol is still a problem.

"Kids tend to say they're drinking to get drunk," she said. "We have fairly
high levels of kids showing up in emergency rooms with alcohol poisoning."

Less than half of students say they always feel safe in school, and that's
a concern for Kelowna principal Bob Lindsay.

As president of the B.C. Principals and Vice-Principals Association,
Lindsay said kids are much more aware of what's going on around them. Eight
per cent say they bring a weapon to school.

He said students feel safer during class than on school grounds, where
outsiders show up selling drugs or recruiting for gangs. Some school fights
now result in serious injuries.