Évolution de la politique en matière de cannabis et prévalence de consommation récréative chez les adolescents et les jeunes adultes en Europe
Gabri et al. concluent que les changements législatifs sur le cannabis n'ont pas d'impact sur la prévalence de consommation récréative de cannabis chez les adolescents et les jeunes adultes en Europe. Pour en savoir plus, en anglais, veuillez lire les informations ci-dessous.
Alexander Carl Gabri, Maria Rosaria Galanti, Nicola Orsini and Cecilia Magnusson
Background
Cannabis policy varies greatly across European countries, but evidence of how such policy impacts on recreational cannabis use among young people is conflicting. This study aimed to clarify this association by investigating how changes in cannabis legislation influenced cannabis use.
Methods
Available data on self-reports of recreational cannabis use among individuals aged 15–34 years was retrieved from EMCDDA. Information on cannabis policy changes was categorized as more lenient (decriminalisation or depenalisation) or stricter (criminalisation, penalisation). Countries that had implemented changes in cannabis legislation or had information on prevalence of use for at least eight calendar years, were eligible for inclusion. We used interrupted time-series linear models to investigate changes in country-specific trajectories of prevalence over calendar time and in relation to policy changes.
Results
Data from Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom, for 1994–2017 was available for analyses. Cannabis use varied considerably over the study period and between countries. On average, use was stable or weakly increasing in countries where legislation was not changed or changed at the extremes of the study period (+0.08 percent per year [95% CI -0.01, 0.17 percent]). In contrast, the pooled average use decreased after changes in legislation, regardless of whether it had become more lenient (-0.22 [-1.21, 0.77]) or stricter (-0.44 [-0.91, 0.03]).
Conclusions
Our findings do not support any considerable impact of cannabis legislation on the prevalence of recreational cannabis use among youth and young adults in Europe.