SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Some four per cent of Yellowknife teens in Grades 9 through 12 have used crack cocaine, according to a student survey to be released early in April.

The survey of drug and alcohol use by Yellowknife teenagers follows a similar survey of Hay River teens released in early March.

The Committee for the Prevention of Youth Substance Abuse (CPYSA), a conglomeration of government, RCMP and individuals, headed up the survey, which involved students at both St. Patrick and Sir John Franklin high schools.

The committee has been around for several years, said Anita Griffore, supervisor of instruction for student support with Yk Education District No.1. However, she added, the committee wasn't active.

The killing of RCMP Const. Chris Worden by a 25-year-old drug dealer in 2007 in Hay River changed that.

"With the incident in Hay River and the community rallying, the people on the committee decided we needed to step things up a bit," she said.

They created a questioning format based on Hay River's and surveyed 535 Yellowknife students in Grades nine to 12 last fall. The point is to create a baseline to work from, she said.

"I think our community felt somewhat shocked at the extent of criminal involvement and drug abuse that was prevalent in Hay River that became evident," through Const. Worden's death, Griffore said. "If it's happening there, it's probably happening here too."

The Yellowknife survey was done "very much looking at Hay River's experience and wanting to learn from that in Yellowknife," said Marlene Villebrun, a territorial government mental health and addictions specialist.

Yellowknife has followed the town's lead in ramping up efforts to combat drug trafficking and substance abuse among teens.

Though the results of the survey are not yet public, Griffore did offer some preliminary findings. She said the committee is already working on putting its lessons to work.

"Only 4 per cent of youth who completed the survey admitted to crack cocaine use," Griffore said, "but 57 per cent of all students who were surveyed thought that crack was a problem so that's an important message to us."

Another somewhat surprising result, she said, was the age at which students are getting involved in substance abuse.

"One of the things the survey did tell us was the age of first use of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis is age 13. I think it made us realize that we need to be focusing our attention on the middle schools. They're already starting," Griffore said.

The Hay River survey found 7.9 per cent of students in Grades 10 to 12 reported using cocaine within the past 30 days, while 1.4 per cent of students in Grades 8 and 9 reported cocaine use over the same period.

The Yellowknife results are comparable to high school surveys across Canada, Griffore said. Villebrun agreed.

"When you look at the NWT, it's really not much different" when compared to the rest of Canada, she said. "They're experimenting at that age and there's definitely a sense of invincibility. They know about a harmful impact of the drug but think 'oh, it won't happen to me.'"

Alcohol, tobacco and cannabis are the most commonly used drugs among Yellowknife teenagers, said Griffore. The harder drugs aren't showing up that much yet, said Villebrun, and she's hoping that will continue.

"Crystal meth, things like ecstasy, are pretty much man-made and you really don't know what's going into them so it's quite a concern," Villebrun said.

Full survey results will be made public early next month, according to Damien Healy, communications manager for GNWT Health and Social Services.

- with files from Adrian Lysenko