Teens who use marijuana to avoid depression have a 40 percent risk of developing mental disorders or suicidal thoughts, according to a White House report released Friday.

The report, released to coincide with May's Mental Health Awareness Month, shows a whooping two million teens felt depressed at some point during the past year. Depressed teens are more than twice as likely as non-depressed teens to have used marijuana or other illicit drugs during that same period

The lack of physicians has taken its toll on an Ottawa medical facility. Orleans Urgent Care Clinic announced it would close on Sundays and holidays beginning June 1 due to the shortage of medics.

Marion Moritz, executive director of the clinic, told the Ottawa Sun, "It's a painful decision for us... All the doctors we are recruiting have left for greener pastures. We are bleeding doctors

Cigarette companies may have to design new packets to enter the rich oil exporting Arab countries.

According to a proposal which the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries are in the process of finalizing, all cigarette packets must have 50 per cent of the packaging indicating statutory health warning with a mandatory font set to 14 on the surface

There are improvements in the physical and emotional health of Canadian youths, particularly on areas of bullying, smoking and couch-potato behavior. According to William Boyce of Queen's University, bullying incidents in 2006 among 9,500 Grade 6 to 10 students across the nation slightly dipped to 40 percent from 43 percent in 2002.

Boyce explained the slight drop to higher awareness in campuses and in Canadian society about the negative effects of physical, verbal, sexual and cyberspace bullying. But racial bullying had gone up a little bit, Boyce admitted

More Canadian youths are turning to unprescribed use of common medicine from serving as a party popper to other non-medical purposes. The drugs, usually filched from the family medicine box, are mixed with alcohol to produce a deadly cocktail.

Aside from the alarming rise in number of young Canadians taking common medicine such as painkillers, equally dangerous is the lack of awareness of the parents that some pills and tablets are already missing and that their children are frequent attendees to weekend parties where deadly combinations of prescription drugs and alcohol go together