MONTREAL SUBSTANCE ABUSE LOWER THAN OTHER AREAS OF CANADA

Montreal Not the Highest of Them All

Though Montreal and Toronto may be hot spots on the North American
party circuit, according to a new study done by the Centre for
Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), there are actually lower
concentrations of substance abuse in both areas and in the corridor of
land in between.

The study, entitled "Geographical Variation in the Prevalence of
Problematic Substance Use in Canada," was co-authored by three
researchers from CAMH, and it discovered that there were markedly
lower concentrations of substance abusers in both Quebec and Ontario
as opposed to higher rates in both Eastern and Western Canada.

"Vancouver is a little bit higher than Toronto and Montreal, and the
difference is not great, but it's a little bit higher," says CAMH
project scientist Karen Urbanoski. She goes on to say that "there were
pockets of high use in all three cities, but overall [Toronto and
Montreal] had a lower rate of problems."

The CAMH study suggest that the prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse
is higher in mid-sized cities than in larger ones or in rural areas,
and Urbanoski theorizes that this is partially due to there being more
opportunities for, and more variety of, social recreation in larger
urban centres.

Another possible contributing factor as to why the two central
provinces have the lowest rates of boozers and users is, says
Urbanoski, "the very low prevalence of substance abuse problems among
immigrants, who tend to settle in cities." As Canada is not the
easiest country to get into, the people that are likely to get into
the country as of late, according to the study, "tend to be healthy
and high-functioning, and some immigrant cultures also reject alcohol
and drug use."

What is really at the heart of the substance abuse discrepancy between
the provinces is not really known, however, since, according to
Urbanoski, "we have not tested [the theories] specifically so it's
difficult to say."