Several studies demonstrate the link between cannabis and academic difficulties. But dropping out of school is a complex and multifactorial process, for which it is difficult to pinpoint a single cause.
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After Malta and Luxembourg, Germany legalized cannabis for recreational use on April 1. This news has naturally relaunched the debate on the legislation of this drug in France. Othman Nasrou, vice-president of the Republicans of the Ile-de-France region, said on the CNews set, Tuesday April 2, that he was there “totally unfavorable”.
To justify his opposition to this policy, the elected official mentions the “harms caused by cannabis”, especially among young people. According to him, this drug even constitutes “the leading cause of school dropouts”. Is he saying true or false? Franceinfo looked into the question.
Confirmed effects on motivation and memory
According to figures from the Department of Evaluation, Foresight and Performance (Depp), in charge of education statistics for the government, 95,000 students leave the school system without a diploma each year. Questioned by franceinfo, Othman Nasrou claims to base his argument on an Australian article published in September 2014 in the scientific journal The Lancet. “The study found that young people under the age of 17 who used cannabis daily were 63% less likely to graduate from high school than those who never used cannabis,” he specifies. This rate is, in fact, cited in the Australian survey. “This therefore makes it the main cause of school dropouts,” he justifies.
A study carried out in 2017 in France by Maria Melchior, research director at Inserm (National Institute of Health and Medical Research) establishes a finding similar to that of the Australian survey: young people who consume cannabis regularly are 60 % less chance of obtaining the baccalaureate than those who do not take it. “Cannabis does have effects on memory, motivation and brain function,” qualities essential to the success of an academic career, confirms with franceinfo Maria Melchior.
“In the short term, taking cannabis impairs perception, attention and immediate memory, disorders likely to disrupt the completion of tasks such as school work for young people”, adds the interministerial mission to combat drugs and addictive behavior in a booklet published in mid-2022*. Maria Melchior adds that the earlier consumption begins, the greater the risks to schooling. Young people have in fact “tendency to consume longer and in greater quantities”develops the specialist.
Many factors causing school dropout
However, academic difficulties are not systematically synonymous with dropping out, “it is difficult to name cannabis as the main cause” of abandoning schooling, judge Maria Melchior. School dropout is in fact not “not a uniform and homogeneous phenomenon”details the Ministry of National Education on its website. “It materializes through so many individual trajectories [que] life stories and is explained by a combination of internal and external risk factors the School“, adds the ministry, for which the solution to this problem “cannot therefore be unambiguous.
Researchers from the University of Nantes investigated the reasons for dropping out of school in an article published in April 2016* in the journal Education and training, published by Depp. We could read that 76% of the students concerned said they left school because of courses considered uninteresting, teaching methods considered inappropriate, or because of a feeling of uselessness of school..
Maria Melchior puts forward other reasons to explain this phenomenon. “School dropping out is multifactorial, it is often linked to health problems, depression, even school phobias or learning problems”. “Cannabis may be a factor, but it’s not the only reason,” underlines the specialist. A report from the National Institute of Prevention and Health Education* defends the idea that “the immediate environment” such as “the family environment, the influence of peers, and the educational team” plays a determining role.
“Young people under 17 who use drugs daily often have other problems, and drugs are a way for them to escape them.”
Maria Melchior, research director at Insermat franceinfo
Dropping out of school cannot therefore be attributed to cannabis consumption alone, says the researcher. Especially since it is decreasing among young French people. According to the work of the French Observatory on Drugs and Addictive Tendencies*, 3.8% of 17-year-olds regularly consumed cannabis in 2022, compared to 9.2% in 2014. This reduction is also noticeable among very heavy smokers. occasional. In 2022, only three in 10 17-year-olds had already used cannabis, compared to one in two in 2002. Alcohol and tobacco consumption has also fallen. According to the researchers, this improvement in the situation can be explained by the Covid years, but also by a decline in the trivialization of tobacco and alcohol, which would no longer be seen as “unmissable” to celebrate in the eyes of the new generation.
*Links followed by an asterisk are to PDF documents.