Objectivity, regularity, accessibility: what is the role for a public observatory in the field of drugs and addictive behaviour?

Since 1996, the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT) has developed a system of surveys and data collection to document in the most transversal way the field of drugs and addictive behaviours. The OFDT is a specific public operator set up in the form of a public interest group (GIP) involving the State (12 ministerial departments and the Interministerial Mission to Combat Drugs and Addictive Behaviour) and the National Federation of Regional Health Observatories (FNORS). This article allows us to review the history of the OFDT, after 25 years of practice, in order to draw up a review of the implementation of an original observation system in France as in Europe but also to reflect on the missions of a public observatory within the framework of public policies of mobilization against addictive behaviour.