Legalization of cannabis, decriminalization of the use of narcotics … the deputy Lfi Antoine Léaument and the attachment of Ludovic Mendes of a macronista present this Tuesday, February 18 at the National Assembly, an information report “aimed at evaluating the efficiency of the policy of the policy of Combat of the Combat Lucha Drug Trafficking “. It contains several proposals that, if adopted, would strongly change French law in narcotics.
The deputies ask to create a “French model for drug regulation” and “take note of the failure of all repressive” in this area. This new executive would include a legalization of cannabis, “closely regulated by the State” through a control agency, on the National Game Agency model (ANJ). It would be a “regulatory agency, where the State takes control of a market that today is completely illegal,” said Deputy Ludovic Mendes in BFMTV this Monday. Cannabis production would be entrusted to “a network of approved operations, other than the medical cannabis sector, which will intend to establish a sector of French excellence,” according to the report.
The objective of the proposals made by the deputies? Adopt a “new paradigm”, according to Ludovic Mendes (together for the Republic). In other words, pass “from a safe appearance” to a vision of “public health.”
Within the European Union, the recreational use of cannabis is legal in Germany, Malta and Luxembourg. Other countries authorize medicinal cannabis, such as Belgium and Spain.
An already widespread consumption in France
In France, some strongly oppose a legalization of cannabis, highlighting the risk of even more important dissemination of this medicine. This is, for example, the case of the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, who sees in the proposal of Ludovic Mendes and Antoine Léaxent “a stab given to society.”
“What will sell in stores will not be the THC level that consumers use today,” said Monday on a trip to Condé-Sur-Sarthe, judging that consumers will continue to obtain from the illegal market.
On the other hand, addictology professionals are “shared” about the opportunity to legalize cannabis, explains Alain Dervaux, a professor of psychiatry and addictology at the University of Paris-Saclay, in BFMTV on Monday. Éric Guillem, psychiatrist of the addict to the addict, is, for example, pragmatic. “In France, any smoker who wants to obtain cannabis will find him in one way or another, whatever his age or socioeconomic situation,” he explains to BFMTV.com.
In 2021, 10.6% of adults in France consumed cannabis in the year, according to the French Health Barometer France in association with the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Trends (OFDT). And regular uses (ten or more occasions for use during the month) or 3% daily of 3% and 1.7% of adults respectively in 2021. Cannabis is illegal drugs “the most disseminated in the population”, according to this report .
Better quality products?
In addition, for Eric Guillem, legalization would not increase, in the long term, the use of this substance. “There are so many people who smoke in France that we are not going to increase the number of smokers” when legalizing cannabis, since “all who want smoking can already do it,” estimates the author of the book How I stop smoking joints, guide for the use of smokers to stop cannabis (Enrique B. eds, 2022).
In Canada, which legalized cannabis in 2018, consumption has increased slightly since: 26% of the inhabitants consumed it at least once in 2024, against 22% in 2018. But the proportion of people who declare daily consumption or Almost -do -titid de El Cannabis remained unchanged (6% in 2024 against 5% in 2018), according to Canadian government figures.
The addictive Éric Guillem considers instead of a legalization of cannabis would allow us to “propose a product that will be well defined from a quality point of view compared to illegal products whose composition is not known.” “Better” in terms of public health for the specialist.
The importance of prevention
For his part, the addictology professor Alain Dervaux insists on the importance of prevention. “Legalize without prior notice” would be equivalent to “put the car before the oxen.” “All drugs” have “even more impact in terms of severity of dependence, addiction, psychiatric and cognitive consequences” that “people consume before and before,” he said.
Éric Guillem also begs an improvement in prevention, too centered today on it on “dramatization” and the “guilt” of the consumer and not enough in the information on the risks related to cannabis consumption. However, these are numerous, according to the OFDT website: decrease in medium -term memorization and learning capacities, physical and intellectual fatigue, depressive mood, worsening of certain psychiatric disorders …
The Federation of Addictions, the first network of associations and addictology professionals in France, also makes its site “leave the current penalty system of people who worsen the problem” and suggest “controlled regulation of access to cannabis that would completely implement prevention and risk reduction. “
Bernard Basset, president of the Addictions France Association, also defends a pragmatic line. “When we have 4 million cannabis consumers, we are already in mass consumption. I don’t think that increasing the ban will lead to greater consumption,” he told BFMTV.
Antoine Léaument and Ludovic Mendes formulate other proposals in their report, including decriminalization of any arrest of less than three grams of narcotics, a strengthening of the means to combat these products in France and an increase in judicial personnel dedicated to the fight against drug traffic.
Source: BFM TV
