POT AND TEENS: STUDY RAISES CONCERNS HERE

Quebec youths singled out. Using marijuana is no longer counterculture -
it's almost the norm, notes social worker

Are Quebec teens going to pot?

New research suggests they are more likely than teenagers anywhere else in
Canada to smoke marijuana and then brush off concerns relating to its use.

The Health Canada study made public last month also reported nearly half of
Quebec teens - 45 per cent of 12- to 19-year-olds - have used marijuana on
more than one occasion. And their first exposure is often by age 13.

"For me the numbers certainly made connections between early drug use,
abuse, gambling and other problems," said Barbara Victor, a Montreal social
worker who, like others, found the results alarming.

Victor is the director of school services for Jewish Family Services, which
organizes drug prevention programs in more than 100 Quebec schools. She said
the statistics tell her Quebec families, schools and other community
organizations must do a better job of giving young people skills - other
than smoking pot - to cope with life's stresses.

The national study found only 34 per cent of Canadian teens, age 12 to 19,
have smoked marijuana more than once and were more likely to have concerns
about it than Quebec teens.

In Quebec, Victor said, smoking pot is no longer counterculture but almost
the norm.

Many of today's parents have smoked marijuana in the past and many continue
the habit.

As a result, Victor said, "teenagers say and, understandably so, 'You do it
Dad. Why can't can't I?'

"But when a teenager smokes pot," she added, "he or she brings his
13-year-old judgment to the situation and it becomes all the more
dangerous."

The 74-page report on Canadian youth and marijuana was put together for
Health Canada by Ottawa-based GPC Research. The report is now making its way
into the hands of professionals working in the field of drug prevention.

The study was commissioned as part of the federal government's plan to
develop a comprehensive health promotion and drug prevention strategy to
discourage Canadians, teens specifically, from smoking marijuana.

There are about 3 million teens in Canada.

It's important to note the age cohort used was a broad one: there's quite a
difference between a 12-year-old pot smoker and a 19-year-old one.

Although the Quebec numbers were not broken down further, nationally, they
were. The study indicated among Canadian teens, 12 to 15 years of age, 14
per cent have tried marijuana more than once while 54 per cent of 16- to
19-year-olds have done so.

Still, Jo-Anne Cooney, a counsellor with Project Pride Drug Crisis Centre,
an N.D.G.-based community initiative, said she is concerned.

She worries about the fact the study suggests Quebec teens who have used
marijuana more than once do not believe it has adverse effects.

But "anyone who knows the chemical makeup of marijuana know that's just not
true," she said.

However, with continuing talk of decriminalizing pot, there's a generalized
loosening up of attitudes toward marijuana, she said. "We're not only
sending mixed messages, we're sending the wrong message to teens," said
Cooney, her cell phone ringing.

A drug-addicted teen in crisis was on the other end of the line.

Before ending the interview, she said, teenagers don't hear there are
adverse side effects to short- and long-term use or understand
decriminalization does not mean it's something 12-year-olds should use.

Barbara Evans, a divorced Beaconsfield mother of two, said she, too, has
concerns about the growing use of marijuana among young teenagers.

Evans (we've changed her name for privacy) explained she came home early one
day last month to find her 13-year-old son smoking marijuana in the family
bathroom.

She said she was shocked, even though, she uses marijuana herself
occasionally.

In the end, she said, she had to be careful about being hypocritical and try
to persuade her son the exploration of marijuana at age 13 was dangerous.

She said she told him you can't drive a car, smoke cigarettes or order a
drink in a bar at age 13 and, for all the same reasons, you are also too
young to smoke pot.

Snapshot

The Health Canada report also found several other ways Quebec teens differ
from teens elsewhere in Canada.

They are less likely (87 per cent) compared with the national average (77
per cent) to feel part of their school.

Seventy-one per cent of Quebec teens worry about disappointing their
parents, compared with 86 per cent of all Canadian teens and 93 per cent of
those living in the Prairies.

Quebec teens are also:

Less likely than the average Canadian teen to avoid people who use drugs.

Less likely than the average Canadian teen to worry about their future and
more likely to express having trouble concentrating.

More likely to take risks and worry about how they look.