Alcohol, tobacco and cannabis use among French school students in 2018

More than 20,000 middle school and high school students, representing 11- to 18-year-old adolescents attending secondary school in metropolitan France, were invited to answer an online questionnaire on their well-being and health behaviour, including their use of psychoactive substances. 

This collaboration between surveys, which is unprecedented in Europe, makes it possible to measure this use among all students from Grade 6 to 12. This issue of Tendances presents the prevalence of experimentation and use of the three most widely used substances during adolescence: alcohol, tobacco and cannabis, by school grade. 

While adolescence is the main period where alcohol, tobacco and cannabis are experimented with, the timing and progression of substance use vary: 

• Alcohol, which is mainly experimented with during middle school, is still the first substance used during adolescence, followed by tobacco. 
• The consumption of cannabis tends to begin at the end of middle school, with experimentation and use developing and strengthening during high school. It is still the most common illegal product, while the lifetime use of other illegal substances remains really low. 

EnCLASS data also confirms the ready accessibility of the products, despite the fact that it is illegal to sell tobacco and alcohol to minors.