In 2021, almost half of French adults had used cannabis at least 1 time in their lives

The 2021 edition of the Health Barometer drawn up by the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT) sheds light on trends in cannabis use in France.

While young adults are tending to use less cannabis, levels of cannabis consumption in the year have remained stable overall between 2017 and 2021. Today, cannabis use is still concentrated in the 18-34 age group, but the proportion of over-35s is tending to increase.

High but stable consumption

In 2021, 47.3% of the adult population aged 18 to 64 said they had used cannabis in their lifetime. Cannabis is still the most widely used illicit substance in the population, with 18 million people having used it in their lifetime. However, the proportion of consumers who have used at least once in the year has stabilized since 2017.

Thus, in 2021, 10.6% of adults used cannabis in the year, a level comparable to 2017, Consumption in the last 30 days fell very slightly over the last period, from 6.4 % to 5.9 %. More frequent consumption, whether on a regular basis (ten or more times in a month) or on a daily basis, is also declining: it concerns 3.0 % and 1.7 % of adults respectively, compared with 3.6 % and 2.2 % in 2017.

In a separate study conducted in 2021, OFDT surveyed 2,587 drug users, 2,447 of whom had used cannabis in the previous year. On average, current users reported smoking 1.8 joints on a regular day of use, a quantity that increases sharply with frequency of use: from 0.8 joints for occasional users - i.e., those who don't smoke every month - to 4.1 joints for regular users. on average for daily consumers.

Aging cannabis users

While cannabis use remains statistically higher among the under-35s, the average age of current cannabis users has been increasing since 1992, rising from 25.1 to 32.8 between 1992 and 2021. OFDT explains that this trend is the cumulative consequence of the ageing of the generations of adults who declared they were using at the end of the 1990s, some of whom have continued to use, and a decline in use by people born in the 2000s.

Brittany and Occitania continue to use more cannabis than the other French regions, while Hauts-de-France has the biggest gap with the national average (-8%). Overseas regions and departments are less likely to experiment with cannabis, with very marked differences from the metropolitan average, ranging from -9 points in Reunion to -25 points in French Guiana compared with the national average.

At European level, the France still leads the way in consumer prevalence in the adult population and among 15-34 year-olds. Only the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Italy exceed France, by a few points, in the «school population (15-16 years)» category.

The OFDT survey was administered to 23,661 adults aged 18 to 64 living in mainland France and its overseas territories.