Substance use among Ont. students down but concerns rise over fentanyl use: report
TORONTO — Ontario adolescents are drinking, smoking and using cannabis and other recreational drugs at the lowest rates since the late 1970s, suggests a biennial survey of Grade 7 to 12 students by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.
But the 2017 survey released Thursday turned up a disturbing finding: almost one per cent of respondents in Grades 9 to 12 reported having taken illicit fentanyl in the previous year, raising a red flag given the opioid’s involvement in hundreds of overdose deaths across the country.
Robert Mann, a senior scientist at CAMH and co-author of the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS), said declines over time in the proportion of adolescents using tobacco, alcohol and cannabis are a positive sign that public health messaging about the harms of such substances are getting through to young people.
In the last 20 years, the proportion of students who reported ingesting alcohol dropped to almost 43 per cent from 66 per cent, while smoking rates fell to seven per cent from 28 per cent, and cannabis use dropped to 19 per cent from 28 per cent.