Figure 1 presents country-specific data on the AOO distributions of drug use among those reporting use of each drug type. As is clear from these graphs, there was remarkable similarity in the AOO distributions for specific types of drugs across countries. The median AOO was between 16–19 y for alcohol for all countries except South Africa (20 y), and for tobacco in all countries except Nigeria (21 y) and China (20 y). The median AOO of illegal drug use was slightly older in all countries. For cannabis, median AOO was between 18–19 y, with the exception of Nigeria and Israel (both 22 y) and Lebanon (21 y). Cocaine use typically began at a slightly older age, with median AOO between 21–24 y for all countries where sufficient data were available to make an estimate.
