News from CAMH: CrossCurrents Winter 2003/04
CrossCurrents
OSDUS results released
During Drug Awareness Week, CAMH released the highly anticipated results of the 2003 Ontario Student Drug Use Survey (OSDUS), the longest ongoing study of adolescent drug use in Canada. This year's study showed that ecstasy use is down and
cigarette and LSD use continue to decline, but heavy drinking remains a problem among Ontario youth. Every two years, service
providers of youth addiction programming eagerly await the OSDUS results, which provide them with information essential to
developing prevention programs for youth. To read the full survey report, view the link above or contact the Marketing department
at 1 800-661-1111 or 416 595-6059.
CAMH launches new Web site
CAMH unveiled its newly designed Web site on November 18. The new camh.net is an inviting, useful and informative site that
has increased functionality and is searchable and easy to navigate. Much time and thought went into ensuring that the site
is accessible to everyone, regardless of age, ability, location, socio-economic status, language and literacy level. Although
CAMH's Web site has already become a trusted source of health information, we hope the updated site will be easier to navigate.
We will continue to add information as it becomes available.
Information Centre opens its new home
CAMH has opened the new location of its R. Samuel McLaughlin Information Centre at 219 Dufferin Street, Suite 3B, in Toronto. The centre provides up-to-date information on mental health and addiction problems,
trends, facts, programs, treatments and prevention strategies through a toll-free information and support line, the Web site,
recorded message and a storefront. The information line can be reached at 1 800-463-6273 or 416 595-6111 in Toronto.
Epigenetics lab opens
Thanks to a $1 million gift from the Krembil Family Foundation, and a $1 million operating grant from the Ontario Mental Health
Foundation, CAMH will be on the leading edge of psychiatric epigenetics research. The state-of-the-art Krembil Family Epigenetics
Research Laboratory opened in October. Featuring the most sophisticated and advanced technology, the laboratory will provide
a permanent infrastructure for the Epigenetics Research program at CAMH.
Epigenetics is one area of research that holds particularly great promise for the future. More traditional genetic approaches
look for DNA sequence differences that predispose individuals to schizophrenia or other psychiatric disorder, while psychiatric
epigenetics suggests that the key problem is abnormal regulation of normal genes.
CrossCurrents has new executive editor
I am pleased to announce that Dr. David Goldbloom is the new executive editor of CrossCurrents. David, CAMH's former physician-in-chief, has also taken on the new role of senior medical advisor, Education and Public
Affairs. We are thrilled that CrossCurrents will benefit from his expertise and broad knowledge of the mental health and addiction fields. I will be stepping down from
the role, but will continue to provide CAMH updates through this column.
Christa Haanstra
Centre for Addiction
