• Alcohol use • Marijuana use • Smoking prevalence • Heavy drinking episodes
• Improving overall
In BC, the 2008 Adolescent Health Survey indicates lower prevalence of alcohol, marijuana and tobacco use among school-aged youth compared with previous years. Heavy drinking episodes (defined as consuming five or more drinks within a two hour time frame) while declining slightly, remains fairly common among school-aged youth. Even though the overall trend is encouraging, the risky use of alcohol remains a significant concern in the province.
Public policy interventions seem to be having a positive effect on the prevalence of tobacco use and to a more limited extent alcohol and marijuana use among youth in BC. To sustain the trend relative to tobacco and to increase the decline in alcohol and marijuana use, available evidence indicates policy makers should:
Smoking tobacco and drinking too much alcohol during teenage years can lead to harms related to personal safety, mental and physical health or engagement with community and family as well as increase the likelihood of other substance use. Cannabis is by far the most common other drug used by young people. The uptake of substance use by school-aged children is of particular concern as young people are in a critical period of growth for their bodies and minds, and the regular use of any psychoactive substance, legal or illegal, early in adolescence is a predictor of more intense and problematic substance use in young adulthood. Drinking to the point of intoxication is associated with increased risks and contributes to significant injury and death among young people. Tracking these indicators provides a way to measure the relative risk substance use poses for the health and well-being of school-aged youth.