Teenage smoking in France today

In 2018, the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction published its annual survey on the consumption of psychoactive substances among a panel of 20,000 adolescents.[1] from sixth grade to final year (i.e. from eleven to eighteen years old). Understanding the stages of entry into smoking and the spread of smoking among young consumers will help us better combat this industrial epidemic.

Middle school: a key moment in the initiation of tobacco.

Tobacco consumption has significantly declined in middle school but remains very high compared to other European countries. Around one in five middle school students (21.2%) has already experimented with tobacco, compared to 27.8% in 2014. A large proportion of these experiments take place between the fifth and fourth grades, for which the smoking rate increases from 14 to 26%. Despite often irregular consumption, limited to an apparently small number of cigarettes, the mechanisms of dependence set in during this period.

High school: setting up uses.

Daily smoking occurs among adolescents from high school onwards. In 2018, 17.5% of high school students smoke daily, while more than half of them (53%) have already experimented with tobacco. The study also shows that smoking affects girls and boys indiscriminately.

Other studies highlight that social inequalities occur from this age. Thus, young people in vocational high schools or CFA centers are significantly more likely to smoke than young people in general high schools.[2].

Easy supply and sometimes lacking protection

Despite the ban on the sale of tobacco to minors, 77% of the daily smokers in this sample say they buy " almost always " Or " often » their cigarettes at a tobacconist. These results illustrate the lack of effectiveness of this measure banning sales to minors by tobacconists. Another important factor is the fact that a significant proportion of high schools, particularly vocational ones, do not respect the ban on smoking within the premises of the establishment. Today in France, the industry still manages to recruit more than 200,000 minors per year to replace smokers who die prematurely as a result of their smoking.

©Generation Without Tobacco