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Quebec wins first place as connoisseurs of cannabis
By Hempology | July 15, 2007
Montreal Gazette
July 15, 2007
David Johnston
Quebec smokes rest of Canada in pot use
MONTREAL — Were it not for prodigious pot use in Quebec, Canada would not have placed first in a United Nations drug study of marijuana use in the industrialized world.
In fact, were Quebec a sovereign nation, it would have finished first ahead of Canada, according to a breakdown of the data supplied by Canada for the UN study.
The biggest difference between Quebec and the rest of Canada is seen in the youngest age groups.
According to the Health Canada’s 2002 Youth Smoking Survey, which looked at marijuana as well as tobacco, 32 per cent of students in Grades 7 to 9 in Quebec have smoked marijuana at least once.
That compares with 18 per cent in British Columbia, which ranked second in Canada, and 11 per cent in Ontario, which ranked lowest among provinces and territories.
The 2007 World Drug Report of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs made headlines last week when it was revealed that Canada topped the list of industrialized nations for marijuana use.
Spain topped the world for cocaine, Iran for heroin, Australia for ecstasy and the Philippines for amphetamines.
In the Montreal area, police say marijuana consumption has become particularly problematic in the booming suburbs north of Montreal and Laval.
Overall, marijuana use in Quebec is running 12 per cent higher than the national average, according to the most recent inter-provincial comparison, the 2004 Canadian Addiction Survey, co-ordinated by Health Canada. This was the main study used by the UN to determine Canadian consumption.
In Quebec, addiction experts say marijuana has surpassed alcohol as the drug for which young people are most likely to seek treatment in publicly funded rehabilitation centres.
“It’s really cannabis that is the substance that is the most problematic among youths that come to treatment centres today — more than for alcohol, certainly,” said Michel Landry, director of research for the Centre Dollard Cormier.
The centre co-ordinates publicly funded drug rehabilitation services for the Ministry of Health in the Montreal area.
Alcohol still causes more societal problems in terms of risky sexual behaviour, property damage and violence, according to Landry.
And, overall, marijuana is still considered among the “least addictive of all psycho-active substances,” according to Jurgen Rehm, a senior scientist with the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
But marijuana, for whatever reason, is becoming more of a worry to those who actually use it, or at least those who believe they are dependent on it.
Whether increased demand among Quebec youth for marijuana-related rehab services reflects the escalating potency of the illegal crop, or the prevalence of so-called grow ops in southwestern Quebec, are not questions that are easily answered, the experts say.
The 2007 World Drug Report found 16.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 to 64 used marijuana in 2004; only four countries, all non-industrialized, had higher rates – Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, Ghana and Zambia.
The key figure addiction experts watch for is chronic consumption.
And, as far as marijuana is concerned, the data suggest only five to 15 per cent of Canadian marijuana users are “problem” users — a proportion that is more or less the same for users of alcohol and other drugs.
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