Drug use in Europe at age 16 – ESPAD 2024 findings
This issue provides a European overview of tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and other drug use among 16-year-olds, as well as an overview of trends over the past decade, both in France and across all participating countries. The results showed that France is now below the European average for all use indicators, recording one of the sharpest declines in drug use on the continent since 2015.
- The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs (ESPAD) is a school-based survey conducted every four years since 1995 (1999 in France). The ninth round was conducted in the first quarter of 2024 across 37 European countries, surveying 113 882 sixteen-year-olds.
- TOBACCO: significant declines were observed in most countries. With one fifth of 16-year-olds reporting lifetime use, France is now among the countries with the lowest levels of lifetime use. With daily smoking having fallen from 16% in 2015 to 3.1% in 2024, France now ranks among the ten or so countries, mainly in Northern Europe, where the level of daily smoking is below 5%.
- ALCOHOL: despite a slow and steady decline in use at both the European level and in France, levels remained high, with the prevalence of heavy episodic drinking in the past month exceeding 30% in nearly half of the countries and reaching 22% in France.
- CANNABIS: while lifetime use has remained around 12% over the past twenty years in many countries, it has, by contrast, decreased sharply in France over the past decade, falling from 31% in 2015 to 8.4% in 2024. Monthly use levels followed a similar trend, falling from 17% to 4.3%. This represents the lowest level recorded in twenty-five years, making France one of the European countries where 16-year-olds are now among the lowest consumers.
- OTHER ILLICIT SUBSTANCES: 3.9% of 16-year-old pupils in France reported lifetime use of at least one illicit drug other than cannabis, placing France below the European average (5.0%).
Publication type
Tendances
No.
169
Publication date
Language
French
English
Author(s)
SPILKA
Stanislas
PHILIPPON
Antoine
LE NÉZET
Olivier
JANSSEN
Éric
Edited by
OFDT
Number of pages
8
ISBN
2272-9739
Products & addictions
Alcohol
Cannabis
e-Cigarette
Cocaine and crack
Hallucinogènes
Heroin and opioids
Ketamine
LSD and mushrooms
MDMA/ecstasy and amphetamine
Tobacco
Themes
Users
Specific population(s)
Adolescents
Territories
International
Dispositif d'enquête et d'observation
Epidemiological surveys