Alcohol, tobacco and cannabis at 16 years old - Initial results of the French part of the ESPAD 2007 survey

Tendances n° 64, OFDT, 6 p.
January 2009

The public authorities and health and prevention activists are paying particular attention to the use of psychoactive substances in adolescents. OFDT has progressively established an observatory system on the use of psychoactive substances during adolescence which now consists of three surveys, two of which are being conducted internationally: first, the HBSC (Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children) supported by the World Health Organisation is questioning 11-, 13- and 15-year-old pupils; second the ESPAD (European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs) survey started by CAN (Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs) and the Council of Europe concerns 16-year-old pupils; lastly, the ESCAPAD survey which, unlike the first two, goes beyond the educational environment, more specifically targeting French 17-year-old adolescents.
This issue of Tendances presents the initial French results on tobacco, alcohol and cannabis use from the last ESPAD survey which was conducted during the first three months of 2007. It updates the changes in use of these psychoactive substances in relation to the two previous surveys: ESPAD 1999 and 2003 (uses of the less commonly used substances will be described later). In its last section, it also presents a few descriptive findings on the sociability1, leisure activities and school life of the pupils questioned.

Author :
Stéphane Legleye, Stanislas Spilka, Olivier Le Nézet, Christine Hassler, Marie Choquet

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