Absolutely. In almost every case of substance use, you can identify something that's present. Often, it's ADHD—and I talk about ADHD because I've been diagnosed with it myself and I know a little bit about it. It could also be depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, social phobias, or bipolar disorder, which is typically self-medicated with alcohol. In a lot of cases of substance use there is a pre-existing mental health problem.
Not only that, but, as some of my colleagues have pointed out, the drugs themselves can either cause or exacerbate mental health problems. There is a strong correlation between cause and effect, from which would follow the pertinence of your comment that better mental health treatment, particularly amongst adolescents and children, would tend to reduce drug use. That's my belief, and it makes sense for all kinds of reasons.
Again, the broader question that I've raised a couple of times, which is not to be answered in this context, is what is it about our culture and our way of life that's driving more and more people...? There are studies in Canada and the States every year that show that more and more kids are suffering from symptoms of mental health disorders of all kinds. There is something going on here, and that's a broader social question.
Specifically, when it comes to mental health treatment, the answer is yes. If in the schools we had better recognition of mental health problems, if we recognized that many of the behavioural problems that we're seeing are actually manifestations of inner turmoil, if the schools, for example, could act as screening venues for identifying kids at risk—and we could do this much more broadly on a community basis as well—I think the more we did this, the less substance use we would have to confront.