The ESCAPAD survey is carried out using a sample of more than 30 000 young people aged 17 and collects data on tobacco, alcohol and cannabis consumption.
Results on tobacco are encouraging as the daily consumption of tobacco has significantly decreased. However, 72% of the young people declared being daily smokers. Quite significantly, a third of them declared having reduced their consumption thanks to the steady increase of taxes.
Alcohol and cannabis appear to be much more problematic. Although alcohol consumption decreases slightly, binge drinking is now a strong feature. Half of the youngsters have experimented cannabis - stable trend since the end of the 90s.
This survey complements a book on drugs and dependency published this month which reviews the trends in drug consumption in France. It particularly highlighted the strong rise in the consumption of alcopops: a 10 fold rise between 2003 and 2004.
This report comes timely as the European Commission is to release the European Alcohol Strategy in October 2006.
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