10% of Ontario youth admit to having smoked cannabis before driving: study

A new University of Ottawa study indicates 10% of young people in Ontario say they have driven a car within an hour of consuming cannabis.

Study author Nathan Cantor, with the university's school of epidemiology and public health, says young respondents with a probable dependence on cannabis were 12 times more likely to have driven after consuming cannabis.

The sample for the study was taken from the responses of 1,160 high school students with valid driver's licences who participated in the 2017 Ontario Student Health and Drug Use Survey.

The average age of respondents was 16.8 years.

Cantor says the preliminary data from the 2019 health and drug survey—conducted after the legalization of cannabis in Canada—does not indicate a rise in the number of young people reporting driving after cannabis consumption.

The study is published in the September 2021 issue of the journal Preventive Medicine.