Drug usage levels in France in 2005

In France there has been a decade of research, via surveys of representative samples of the general population, into the usage levels of different psychoactive substances (both legal and illegal) and recent trends in their use. 

This observational system has had a measurable effect upon the Health Barometers carried out since the early 1990s by INPES (the French national institute for prevention and education in health), as well as upon the information about young people available to the OFTD since 2000. One essential role of these surveys is to provide specific data such as the proportion of regular or experimental users. 

In terms of the consumption of illegal drugs, three behavioural patterns can be identified: one off use, harmful use and dependency. Each of these patterns is subject to distinctive prevention strategies. 

Surveys of the general population are particularly important in allowing information to be collected about one-off users and more common drugs (by contrast, they are an inadequate method of researching problem users and new, emerging drugs such as GHB or ketamine). They therefore complement other indicators such as criminal and sanitary statistics or ethnographic observations which deal mainly with the two other types of use or users. 

The Health Barometer 2005 data presented in this edition of Tendances facilitate the measurement of usage levels for different legal and illegal substances; the examination of the results by product represents the first opportunity to document a number of previously unanswered questions relating to alcohol and cannabis.