Alcohol and Drug Use Among European 17-18 Year Old Students. Data from the ESPAD Project

Within the ESPAD project data on 15-16 year old students have been collected three times since 1995 in an increasing number of European countries. Although this age is the main target group for the project, some countries have collected data also among older students. In the last survey in 2003 seven countries studied students born in 1985, i.e. they were 17-18 years old by the time of data collection. This report aims at reporting the core variables of the ESPAD questionnaire for this older population. It has been argued that teenagers older than 15-16 are important to survey since the prevalence rates are supposed to increase by age among young people. However, the reason why the ESPAD project is focussing on the younger group is that the school systems vary a lot between countries. In many countries a large part of the age cohort has left school by the age of 17. Nevertheless is it important to try to cover other age groups in addition to the main target group. The task of coordinating the ESPAD project would not have been possible without the economic support from the Swedish Government. Moreover, the Swedish National Drug Policy Coordinator provided economic support for the printing of this report. We are also grateful for the support that was provided by the Pompidou Group at the Council of Europe and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) in Lisbon.