(CNW) According to the 2004 Canadian Addiction Survey (CAS), there is a steady increase in marijuana use over the past decade. In 1994, 28 percent of Canadian young adults 18 years and older reported using marijuana at least once in their life; today that number has increased to 45 percent. And 14  percent reported using marijuana this past year, indicating a seven per cent increase since 1994.
"Despite the obvious problem of increased usage, there is the
issue of using tobacco in joints or pipe smoking to assist in
burning or to titrate the effect of marijuana," says Dr. Scott
Leatherdale, researcher at Cancer Care Ontario, University of
Waterloo and University of Toronto.
"There is an urgent need to examine the relationship between
tobacco and marijuana use among this at-risk population more
closely."
   
In 2004, approximately 1.9 million Canadians between the ages of 15 and 24 reported trying marijuana and 1.1 million reported using it in the last year.
