According to the latest statistics, Canadian Youth smoke less, drink more and their drug use is steady. Here's a writeup about it from the Toronto Star:
For the first time in a decade, drug use among Ontario youth didn't increase last year but it remains higher than during the 1990s, suggested a survey released today by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
"The escalating trend in drug use, which began in the early 1990s, has generally subsided," said Dr. Edward Adlaf, senior scientist at the centre.
"The '80s were a period of decline of drug use, the '90s had a resurgence and in 2001, the good news is that illicit drug use among youth isn't growing. The bad news is it's still higher than it was in the early '90s," Adlaf said.
The number of youth who smoke cigarettes was at the lowest since 1977, when the surveys, which are conducted every other year, began.
In 2001, 24 per cent of students in Grades 7 through 13 said they were smokers. In 1999, the number was 29 per cent.
"We're very pleased that smoking has declined among Ontario students," said Andrea Stevens, a representative at the centre.
Stevens said she believes the many national, provincial and community tobacco-prevention initiatives, including anti-smoking by-laws, have contributed to the decline.
But there was no significant drop in the overall number of students who use illicit drugs, and use of the drug ecstasy rose to seven per cent from two per cent among Grade 9 students.
The 2001 Ontario Student Drug Use Survey also revealed that heavy drinking remains a problem among youth, with the percentage of youth who get drunk increasing to 27 per cent in 2001 from 17 per cent in 1993. The number of youth who reported binge drinking — having five or more drinks at a time — rose to 25 per cent in 2001, from 18 per cent eight years ago.
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health surveyed 4,211 students in spring 2001.
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The great ships are safe in the harbour, but that's not what they were built for.
