MARIJUANA USE 'MAINSTREAM' AMONG TEENS

OTTAWA -- Marijuana is making a dramatic comeback among
teens.

A national survey of 1,250 12-to-19 year olds revealed that getting
high is once again "mainstream," says a Health Canada
representative.

The results suggest the greatest pot use among young people in 25
years.

Health Canada gave a preliminary report of its findings last week to a
House of Commons committee holding hearing on a bill that would
decriminalize marijuana but stiffen penalties against grow operations.

"Research we have conducted on 12-to-19 year olds shows us that
marijuana has gone mainstream and is well integrated into teen
lifestyle," reported Linda Dabros, a special adviser to Health
Canada's director general of drug strategy.

Fifty-four per cent of 15-to-19 year olds said they had smoked up more
than once. When 12-to-14 year olds were added to the mix, however, the
overall numbers dropped to 34 per cent.

Cigarette smoking, on the other hand, continues to decline among young
people, with the latest national figures showing that 22 per cent of
teens light up regularly.

Teen marijuana smokers appear to be imitating their baby-boom parents,
said Richard Garlick, a spokesman for the Canadian Centre for
Substance Abuse. "Youth rates are going up and are at levels that we
haven't seen since the late '70s when rates reached their peak," said
Garlick.

"Some people say it's an attitudinal thing, that kids who have been
getting into cannabis use recently are children of the baby boom and
the notion there is that baby boomers don't have the same kind of
alarmist views that their parents might have had," he said.

Other possible explanations, Garlick said, are that the supply has
steadily increased and, at the same time, the federal government put
its fight against drugs on a back burner.

"We went to sleep on the issue and cannabis rates started coming up
again."

The telephone survey was conducted in August, with four-to-five
followup discussions online with participants.

Dabros said that teens appear to be confused about the state of the
federal pot law. It is a criminal offence to smoke marijuana, but the
federal Liberals have proposed legislation to decriminalize possession
of less than 15 grams so that people would be fined rather than
criminally charged.

The survey is one of the first that the federal government has done in
a decade to measure the extent of Canada's drug problem. The Health
Department intends to use the data for an anti-marijuana campaign that
is being developed to prevent teens smoking their first joint.

The last national survey involving young people and drugs, done in
1994, showed that one-third of 15-to-24 year olds had tried marijuana.

Health Department spokeswoman Catherine Saunders said the government,
in the latest survey, questioned teens about how often they smoke
drugs, but those figures are still to be analyzed.

Bill Baker, president of the Ontario School Counsellors Association,
said he suspects that only a small minority of teens smoke marijuana
regularly and that it is not "just flaunted everywhere" in schools.

"I think it's very dependent on the school and the clientele at the
school," said Baker.

At his small high school in southern Ontario, for instance, police
drug dogs do periodic checks but have failed to find anything, he said.