Certainly that's what we see in our area as well. Marijuana is as insidious as alcohol.

Alcohol is probably the easiest substance to abuse, because the potential is there. It's legal, and it's available.

That's one area where we differ from the rest of Alberta. It didn't become the huge problem here that it did in other communities.

It really started to become a problem near Edson about 10 years ago.

The stuff they're smoking today is far more powerful than when I was running around being a hippie. It has gone from one or two per cent THC to 22 to 25 per cent THC.

It doesn't matter where you are, there's a core base population of 12 to 20 per cent who will abuse drugs or alcohol.