It was not until the late 1990s that France established a system for statistically monitoring drug use patterns among the general population. From the outset, these surveys targeted the entire French population, with a particular focus on young people, given the public health concern posed by early initiation into psychoactive substances—primarily alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, and cannabis. Launching a survey among adolescents on illicit behaviors was not a given, but by innovating while drawing inspiration from surveys conducted in the United States, such as the Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey, or the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) carried out in other European countries, the French Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT) designed the first ESCAPAD survey in 2000 targeting 17-year-olds; the survey’s ninth round will take place in 2022. Drawing on a few examples of emblematic survey results, this article examines the specific contributions of a quantitative monitoring system and explores how it can be adapted to new methodological challenges as well as developments in the field of addiction studies.