“At the dawn of the new five-year term, it is urgent that a national debate on drug policies begins”

Lhe two spring 2022 election campaigns were dominated by the geopolitical, health and social crises that the country continues to face. The debate on the reform of drug policies, envisaged by Emmanuel Macron in 2017 in particular on the decriminalization of the use of cannabis, remained absent from the discussions.

Over the past five years, issues relating to the consumption of illegal psychoactive substances, the creation of lower-risk consumption rooms, the management of crack cocaine and the trafficking of cannabis in housing estates, have only been approached under the security and penal angle.

At the dawn of the new five-year term, there is an urgent need for a national debate on drug policies, based on the scientific data accumulated in recent decades and on the experience acquired in many countries, avoiding the pitfall of simplification, prejudices and partisan ideologies.

Patients and delinquents

Policies considering people who use psychoactive substances both as sick and as delinquents, as the 1970 law does, have failed.

In France, drug use has continued to grow, according to the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction. According to the eighth report of this institution, at least 537 overdose deaths were recorded, all illicit substances combined, in 2017; 161,000 arrests for drug use were made; 67,500 convictions pronounced for a drug-related offence, the majority for offenses of use and possession of an illegal substance, without this behavior having harmed others.

Arrests and imprisonments continue to increase and increase the stigmatization of people who have already been discriminated against because of the color of their skin, their origin or their social marginalization, a discrimination noted by the Defender of Rights [en 2017]. These communities have long since lost confidence in the forces of order and justice, so necessary confidence in the rule of law.

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Police and judicial institutions are overstretched, while the few harm reduction initiatives, given their success, call for better and more. Since 2006, throughout the territory, only a few reception and support centers for risk reduction and associations have welcomed and supported people whose drug use is problematic and harms their health and their social integration. .

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