Medical and recreational cannabis are illegal in France. But that hasn’t stopped its residents from using the substance. In fact, a study in 2021 shows that France has one of the highest levels of cannabis use among European countries.
Solène Wallez, among seven other researchers, set out to understand why French residents are prone to using cannabis to self-medicate. Solène is a statistical research engineer at Inserm, the only public sector research institution in France that’s dedicated to human health.
The researchers pulled data from the TEMPO study, in which participants were interviewed about their mental health and psychoactive substance use. The first interviews occurred in 2009, and participants were interviewed 12 more times through 2021. The data that Solène and her fellow researchers pulled was from December 2021 to May 2021 for 659 participants. Of these, 381 had reported using cannabis at one point in their lives. And 345 participants—who were aged 27–47—answered questions about their use.
An overwhelming majority of the 345 said they had used cannabis to manage stress or anxiety (94.4%), while some cited managing headaches, migraines, or treating chronic pain. These findings were published in April 2024 in the Journal of Cannabis Research, a peer-reviewed journal covering all topics related to cannabis.
There are so many health hazards associated with cannabis use—including increased anxiety, the very problem cannabis users from the TEMPO study are trying to quell. That’s why it’s critical for researchers to continue shedding light on the serious public health issue of cannabis use.
To read the full study, visit this page.