Cannabis, cocaine, ketamine… In France, drug consumption is increasing

The trend has been well documented for over a decade: overall drug use is increasing in France. And with it comes a host of horrors, destroyed lives, deadly violence, and corruption. Thus, the scourge of drug trafficking, with which “France is submerged,” according to the report of the Senate inquiry commission published in May 2024 and led by Senators Jérôme Durain (Socialist Party) and Étienne Blanc (LR). This 600-page document forms the basis of the law passed by the National Assembly on April 29, 2025, aimed at “fighting drug trafficking” and establishing a series of repressive measures, such as the creation of a national anti-organized crime prosecutor’s office, the freezing of drug traffickers’ assets, the banning of traffickers from appearing in their drug dealing neighborhoods, the tightening of the prison regime, etc. Increase in consumption Time will tell whether this new law is an adequate response to an evil against which public policy has so far seemed powerless. In this regard, the latest key figures published in January 2025 by the French Observatory for Drugs and Addictive Trends (OFDT), whose role is to inform public policy in this area, make for striking reading. With the exception of heroin, illicit substances such as cocaine, ecstasy, and various new drugs, including ketamine, are experiencing strong growth. Also read: In Verdun, the fight against heroin Take cocaine. According to the OFDT, 1.1 million French people between the ages of 11 and 75 had used the white powder at least once in 2023. A figure that justifies the expression “white tsunami” used in the report on drug trafficking in 2024. In 30 years, the proportion of French people using this product at least once a year has increased tenfold, rising from 0.3% of the population in 1992 to 2.7% in 2023. In total, one in 10 French adults (9.4%) has experimented with cocaine at least once in their lifetime, compared to 5.6% in 2017. This trend is the same for ecstasy (or MDMA): in 2023, 750,000 French people have used it at least once. As for cannabis, by far the most widely consumed illicit drug, its use remains as significant and increasingly tolerated as ever, with many French elected officials working toward its legalization, a path already chosen by several countries (Germany, Canada, several states in the United States). No fewer than 900,000 French people use it daily, and 1.4 million at least 10 times a month, according to the OFDT. This makes more than two million people dependent on this drug. In total, half of French adults have already tried cannabis at least once in their lives. More drugs in circulation The OFDT explains this expansion by several factors: the supply, which continues to grow in quantity and quality and diversify thanks to the sharp rise in production, itself stimulated by the increasingly intense and sophisticated activity of criminal networks. This is particularly the case for cocaine, as summarized by sociologist Clément Gérome, research officer at the OFDT: “The product is more affordable and easier to access than it used to be, and it is more often consumed in festive contexts, as part of friendly sociability. For people who have never used it, there are now more opportunities to experiment with it.” Selling, on the other hand, has been greatly facilitated by the Internet, with drug trafficking having largely become “uberized”: “At one time, to buy, you had to know people,” recalls Clément Gérome. “Now, all you have to do is retrieve a trafficker’s account on a social network or instant messaging service and they’ll come and deliver to you, wherever you are.” Also read: Getting out of drug trafficking, Younes’ challenge New users are men, overrepresented in all aspects of illicit drug use, mostly aged 25 to 44. The choice of products consumed depends primarily on price. While snorted cocaine has become more affordable, it remains expensive, costing an average of €66 per gram. This cost is often considered too high by young users, who prefer to treat themselves to an ecstasy tablet for €10. The most vulnerable people, on the other hand, mainly and increasingly use crack, a substance composed of cocaine “based” with baking soda, to smoke. For a smaller amount (half a gram or even less), the user obtains a violent, but shorter psychostimulant effect. “Crack can be made by anyone in their kitchen: there are even tutorials on YouTube for doing it. Apart from the north-east of Paris or certain overseas territories, where cocaine is resold already in crack form, users in Marseille, Bordeaux, Lyon, etc. make it themselves,” explains Clément Gérome, who conducted a field study on the subject. The more recent products being developed in France mainly attract a population in the 25-34 age group. For example, ketamine, originally an anesthetic, is used for its euphoric and disinhibiting effects. And also use at work However, these factors do not explain why the French take drugs, and especially why they are doing so increasingly. Is our country in worse shape today than yesterday? Before outlining an answer, it is important to remember that a society without drugs, whether legal or illegal, does not exist and never has. “Drugs and addictions are inherent to our society and to the citizens who make it up. A society is thus confronted with a double contradictory movement: it participates in their development while being responsible for their regulation and the management of their consequences,” writes Christian Ben Lakhdar, an academic member of the OFDT scientific college, in Addicts. Drugs and Us (Seuil, 2020). According to psychoanalyst and essayist Jacques Arènes, “it is simply a human tendency to want to manipulate states of consciousness, for example by seeking more pleasure or to calm down. From this point of view, there is nothing new.” A keen observer of societal changes, and a front-row seat to the suffering of his patients in his office, he nevertheless notes that something has changed in recent decades: “The basic narcissistic and hedonistic personality is more present than it was 50 years ago in the Western world. There is a kind of social injunction to party, to have fun, to seek more intensity too. I also note that the more we struggle to live basic experiences like human relationships, the connection with people, the more we need intensity, to multiply experiences. The fact that common experience is often experienced as empty by our contemporaries could partly explain the increased use of psychostimulant products, particularly those with disinhibiting effects.”