Findings from the 2025 Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS) released today by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) suggest that Ontario middle and high school students have rebounded from the heightened mental health challenges seen during and immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared with the previous survey conducted in 2023 , students reported significant improvements in psychological distress, self-harm, self-rated mental health, and feelings of school connectedness. Overall drug use also continues to decline. However, major concerns remain, including that nearly half of students reported moderate-to-serious psychological distress, an estimate that has doubled over the past decade. Emerging trends include nicotine pouch use, elevated video gaming and social media use, and online gambling.
The data for the 2025 OSDUHS reports were collected between December 2024 and June 2025 and include self-reports of 11,108 grade 7-12 students from 246 schools in 42 school boards across Ontario. Together, they provide one of the most comprehensive snapshots of youth mental health and drug use in the province and offer valuable insights into both current conditions and long-term trends.
“We are relieved to see that the acute mental health challenges during the pandemic have eased,” says Dr. Hayley Hamilton , Co-Director of the Institute for Mental Health Policy Research (IMHPR) , and OSDUHS survey lead. “Several measures of student well-being have improved since 2023, and some have returned to levels observed before the pandemic began in 2020, which is good news. However, mental health concerns remain elevated, and many indicators are significantly higher than they were a decade ago, reminding us that there is much more work to do.”
Just under half of students (46 per cent) reported symptoms of moderate-to-serious level of psychological distress and nearly one-quarter (23 per cent) reported symptoms of serious level of psychological distress. Both estimates have decreased significantly since 2023, and returned to pre-pandemic levels. However, they remain significantly higher than a decade ago, when 24 per cent of students reported moderate-to-serious distress and 11 per cent serious distress. Similarly, nearly one-third of students (30 per cent) rated their mental health as fair or poor—down from 38 per cent in 2023, but still significantly higher than the 15 per cent reported a decade ago.
Roughly one-third of students (29 per cent) also reported needing professional mental health support in the past year but not seeking it. Common barriers to seeking mental health support included believing they could manage on their own, concern that their parents would find out, and doubts that professional help would be effective. Although the number of students needing but not seeking professional help has decreased significantly since 2023, it points to ongoing gaps in access to mental health support for young people.
Long-Term Declines in Drug Use Continue
Drug use among Ontario students continues its decades-long decline, with alcohol, tobacco and several other substances at or near historic lows. Compared with 2023, significant decreases were observed for vaping, cannabis use, non-medical use of prescription opioids, and the non-medical use of cough and cold medications. Nearly half of students (48 per cent) reported abstaining from alcohol, tobacco/nicotine, and cannabis altogether.
At the same time, emerging trends underscore the need for continued surveillance, research, and targeted prevention and early intervention initiatives to ensure drug use continues to decline. Nicotine pouches—small, tobacco-free packets placed between the lip and gum that release nicotine through the lining of the mouth—are becoming a concern among youth largely because of the potential for addiction and progression to other tobacco products. Six percent of students reported using nicotine pouches in the past year, which is almost double the per cent smoking tobacco cigarettes (3.5 per cent). The survey also suggests many young people who vape may face challenges stopping, with nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of students who vape reporting at least one quit attempt in the past year and 39 per cent trying to quit three or more times. Recent sex differences in drug use patterns also persist, with girls being more likely than boys to use cannabis, vape, use prescription opioids non-medically, and drink alcohol.
Digital Environments and Technology Increasingly Shape Youth’s Experiences
Digital technologies are deeply embedded in students' daily lives, with nearly all students reporting using social media every day. One-quarter (25 per cent) spend five hours or more per day on social media and more than three-quarters (78 per cent) spend three hours or more per day in front of an electronic screen in their free time. Both measures have remained relatively stable in the short term but have risen dramatically since they were first reported in 2013 and 2009, respectively. At that time, just 11 per cent of students reported using social media five hours or more per day, while 55 per cent reported three or more hours of recreational screen time. A similar trend can be seen for videogaming.
While online environments may foster connection and access to information, they have also been shown in previous studies to contribute to social comparison, cyberbullying, body image pressures, and exposure to harmful content. Students who spend more time on social media have been found to be more likely to report poorer mental health, adding to ongoing concerns about the possible impact of increased social media and technology use on youth well-being.
Online Gambling Rises Sharply Among Youth
One of the survey's most notable findings is the significant increase in online gambling. Twelve per cent of students reported participating in online gambling in the past year, up from 8 per cent in the 2023 survey. Online sports betting in particular has increased substantially, rising from one per cent in 2019 to ten per cent in 2025—an alarming tenfold increase. Nearly one-quarter of students (23 per cent) also reported being exposed to advertisement for online gambling every day.
“The rapid growth of online gambling among young people is really concerning,” says Dr. Peter Selby , Principal Investigator of CAMH’s INTREPID Lab, Senior Scientist and Senior Medical Consultant at CAMH, and an expert in youth mental health and substance use. “The results raise important questions about how young people are able to access gambling products despite age restrictions, and about the influence that widespread gambling advertising and its normalization have on attitudes and behaviours. We need stronger measures to reduce youth exposure during a vulnerable time of brain development and better prevent the long-term impact of these trends.”
CAMH has previously called for stronger restrictions on gambling advertising and promotion , including measures to reduce youth exposure, limits on celebrity and athlete endorsements, restrictions on gambling promotion during sports broadcasts (whistle-to-whistle ban), and a broader public health approach to preventing gambling-related harms.
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About OSDUHS
The Institute for Mental Health Policy Research at CAMH has conducted the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS) every two years since 1977. The OSDUHS is the longest-running ongoing school survey of adolescents in Canada, and one of the longest running in the world. The survey results are described in two reports—one for mental health and the other for drug use—and include data on drug use, mental health, physical health, gambling, bullying, and other risk behaviours, as well as identifying risk and protective factors among Ontario students. All data are based on self-reports derived from anonymous questionnaires. The survey was administered in classrooms by the Institute for Social Research (at York University) on CAMH’s behalf.
About the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)
The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) is Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital and a world leading research centre in this field. CAMH combines clinical care, research, education, policy development and health promotion to help transform the lives of people affected by mental illness and addiction. CAMH is fully affiliated with the University of Toronto and is a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization Collaborating Centre. For more information, please visit camh.ca or follow @CAMHnews on Bluesky and LinkedIn.
Media contact :
CAMH Communications
media@camh.ca
24-Aug-2026