ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE?

A new study suggests there may be a reason Canadians are generally
seen as more laid-back than their American counterparts.

According to a recent report by the United Nations, Canadians use
marijuana at four times the world average rate, making Canada the
leader of the industrialized world in pot smoking.

The 2007 World Drug Report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says
that 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 smoked marijuana or used
another cannabis product in 2006. The world average is 3.8 per cent.
The Canadian statistic is surprising, to say the least.

In the UN report, Canada ranks fifth in the world for marijuana use,
behind Ghana, Zambia, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia.

Marijuana and other variants of cannabis make up the bulk of global
drug use, consumed by 160 million people.

In 2006, about 200 million people, or five per cent of the world's
population aged from 15 to 64, used drugs at least once. Of those, an
estimated 25 million had drug dependencies.

The report found that Canada also had a high rate of usage for
cocaine, at 2.3 per cent of population, ranking it third behind Spain
and England.

For the other top three drugs -- heroin, amphetamines and ecstasy --
Canada was near or under the international average for usage.

The UN report found that overall, drug usage around the world is
relatively stable for the third year in a row.

Other statistics call into question the validity of the UN's number on
Canadians toking up.

Health Canada released the results of the latest Canadian Tobacco Use
Monitoring Survey last week, and it showed that the rate of smoking
has dropped to an all-time low, with teen smoking down to 15 per cent
of teens aged 15-19.

We find it hard to believe that the rate of smoking pot among everyone
aged 15-64 is higher than the rate of teens taking the odd puff of a
cigarette.

While the results of the UN study seem like a plausible explanation
for the way some of our politicians act, we have to conclude that the
people who compiled the United Nations study must have been smoking
something themselves.

Either that, or they conducted the interviews for the Canadian portion
of the study entirely on the beaches of Vancouver and on the snowboard
slopes.