In France, the observation and evaluation of drug abuse and dependence associated with pychoactive medications are the responsibility of the National Commission for Narcotics and Psychotropic Drugs. In order to assist this commission, several centres for evaluation and information on pharmacodependence (CEIP) were created throughout in France. Recently, in order to complete their epidemiological tools, several centres have developed another pharmacoepidemiological approach using data for refunded prescriptions obtained from the local and regional French Health Insurance database. This article underlines the potential contribution of the Health Insurance database to improving knowledge of drug use in the real-life conditions based on studies performed by the CEIP. Several examples are given showing the extent of the possibilities (population-based studies, cohort studies, development of misuse indicators). In spite of their limitations (e.g. the difference between consumption and delivery), these examples confirm that these database may be a novel tool for CEIP to assess a potential abuse of a medication.