Drug use at the age of 18: principal results from the ESCAPAD 2001 survey

This survey replaces the annual surveys on the use of psychoactive substances which were carried out until 1996 by the armed forces health department. 

ESCAPAD is based on a strictly anonymous self-administered questionnaire focusing on health, lifestyle (going out and sociability) and the use of psychoactive products. As in 2000, the objective of this cross-sectional survey is to give precise results on a limited age bracket covering the end of adolescence. 

Since ESCAPAD 2001 took place only ten months after the first survey in 2000, it is not yet a question of observing trends. On the other hand, this second exercise does consolidate the results of the first. In 2001, ESCAPAD took place in metropolitan France (around 15 000 individuals), and in the overseas departments (Réunion island, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Guyana, around 2 300 individuals). 

The results presented here concern, for metropolitan France, young people born in 1983 (n=12 512, referred to subsequently as the "18 year-olds"), and for the overseas departments, young people born in 1983 and 1984 (referred to subsequently as the "17-18 year-olds"): n=1 095 for Réunion island, n=598 for Guadeloupe, n=294 for Martinique), the number of participants in Guyana (n=98) being insufficient for any reliable statistical use.