Initiation to cannabis is often the first step in the use of illicit drugs. We studied the correlates of initiation in a 5-year follow-up study. A total of 21.4% of the subjects reported using cannabis at some time. Of the 139 users, 89.2% had tried cannabis not more than once or a few times. This initiation to cannabis was related to male gender, absence of mother, frequent lack of interest and early age at first sexual intercourse in logistic regression analysis. These factors seem to be useful in predicting initiation to cannabis.