Amid the university and college partying beginning this week as post-secondary institutions across the city open for class, marijuana is surely one guest bound to make an appearance.

The illegal drug is the most commonly used in Canada among youth aged 15-24 according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse.

This has health and school officials concerned, with both pointing toward the growing body of evidence that suggests younger minds are still developing by the time they begin post-secondary education …and start smoking the drug.

“Cognitive development continues into your late 20s,” said Dr. Gail Beck, director of the Youth Outpatient Psychiatry Program at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. “We know that cannabis use can result in frayed functioning, such as difficulty with memory and motivational problems.

“But overall, this is considered to be quite a serious addiction use issue.”

Canadian youth are the top users of marijuana in the developed world, according to a 2013 Unicef Office of Research report.

18% use it weekly

Provincially, in a survey released in 2011 by the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH), 18.3% of people aged 18-29 in Ontario use marijuana weekly or daily.

Among post-secondary students in Canada, 17% use marijuana monthly and 6.3% use it daily.

One of those Ottawa students is Eric, who chose not to provide his last name.

He admits he smokes cannabis regularly, at least three days a week.

Introduced to the drug during his first-year of university, the undergrad says smoking dope reduces his stress levels throughout the academic year.

“My mind immediately leaves everything else alone,” he said. “I enjoy it.

“It feels good.”

However, despite the pleasant impairment, the academic consequences can be devastating.

Studies have found memory-related structures in marijuana smokers’ brains appeared to “shrink and collapse inward” and recorded low performance in memory-related tasks.

“If you’re constantly stoned, you can’t perform in school,” said Murray Sang, director of the University of Ottawa’s Student Academic Success Service, who provides counselling services to students who may find themselves struggling with drug-related issues. “You are messing up brain chemistry while it is still forming.”

Drug use on Ottawa’s campuses varies.

Because most students live off-campus, precisely where drug activity is more likely to occur, it becomes more difficult to track according to Sang.

In 2013, there were 78 allegations of drug use on the University of Ottawa campus.

In the same year, Algonquin College faced 332 drug possession incidents.

Statistics weren’t available from Carleton University, but a university official was able to confirm its presence there as well.

“Marijuana on campus is an ongoing issue,” said Ryan Flannagan, director of Student Affairs at Carleton. “It is a concern in particular where students are using it as a tool to manage mental health issues.”

Sarah, a Carleton graduate who deals marijuana to students at English-speaking institutions in Ottawa, said anxiety among her customers is to blame for her booming business.

“My clients are young and they do it because they are stressed,” she said. “I have an anxiety disorder myself and I actually think it helps me sleep and eat.”

Therapy, medication

But there are far safer alternatives, such as therapy or prescribed medications, Beck says.

“We feel there are better treatments for anxiety, real treatments that are tested in double-blind trials, using medication and therapy,” she said. “We won’t deny that some people can feel relief from marijuana … but people’s moods will get worse.”

While there is debate over the extent to which marijuana use will have a detriment on how brain cells communicate with each other, there is little doubt over its growing availability and relatively easy to obtain access.

For recent high school graduates entering the post-secondary scene, nearly a quarter of Ottawa youth in Grades 7-12 will have already used cannabis at least once in the past year, according to research conducted by Ottawa Public Health in 2013.

So now that smoking marijuana is no longer reserved for the scraggly haired students and college dropouts, what is now worrisome is the growing misconception that marijuana is a harmless drug, and socially acceptable, becoming the norm to an unsuspecting millennial population.

“Whenever you are doing something illegal, you are taking a risk, and I don’t feel it is a good idea to underestimate what that risk is,” Beck said.