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Drug Policy in France: From Criminalization to Risk Reduction

Michel KOKOREFF

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Is France different from everyone else? Our attitude to drugs is paradoxical. It is true that drug policies in France have taken a new approach since the mid 1990s[1], an approach prompted by a new awareness of public health problems related to the consumption of illegal drugs, as well as legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol; by the fact that drug abuse can simply not be eliminated; and by pressure from surrounding countries, since France could no longer deal with the issue alone[2]. AIDS was a new factor, though it entered the equation late in the day. The attitudes of many stakeholders have altered. Some police officers still believe that cannabis use should be decriminalized, an approach unthinkable a few years ago, and magistrates are increasingly reluctant to put simple users in jail. Drug-related care personnel are no longer hostile towards substitution, as they had been for a long time (Bergeron, 1999). New parties, such as locally-elected politicians, family physicians and even users themselves, are also becoming involved. These changes have came about as the social sciences research environment was reorganized and as an increased number of empirical studies revealed more information about consumers of illegal products, parallel markets and public opinion.

Yet nothing has really changed. The 1970 drug act still underpins French policy on the war against drugs and drug abuse; it is still predominantly influenced by repressive reasoning legitimized by a prohibitionist model, at the expense of health and social well-being[3]. The unrelenting stance of the chief political actor, the State, is obvious, as is the absence of any political response to repeating demands for legislative amendments and any decriminalisation of soft drugs. The more security-minded constantly argue that there is a link between “drugs” and “delinquency”, and focus on events in the “suburbs” and the behaviour of young immigrants. On the whole, even though we hear less moralizing from official sources, it is the pragmatic approach — the application of criminal law and health requirements — that prevails over less clear-cut approaches like crime reduction and prevention.

In this context, the problem of determining criminal penalties for drug offences in France is twofold. In establishing any kind of a priority categories, we should be cautious of taking a “criminalization policy” for granted. The strategy of criminalizing not only trafficking but also private and public use is not really practicable, and leads to adjustments in the legislation for different local contexts. This has prompted the generatio9n of an impressive number of plans, directives, circulars and other texts[4] designed to harmonize judicial practices and to apply criminal law to new situations[5]. This is also entailed a review of the legitimacy of the drug act and recurring debates about amending it, in line with the initiatives taken by other EU countries.

Both official reports and field investigations reveal disparities among jurisdictions, though such disparities are obviously not specific to drug-related cases and appear in other cases as well. We may wonder whether their result is criminalization policies that apply in a local context only. Yet diversity of judicial practices as regards both prosecution and conviction need not necessarily imply that policies in their true sense — that is, actions guided by choices and priorities — really exist. The practices that largely guide decision-making arise from institutional approaches and complex interactions among stakeholders extending far beyond the scope of criminal law. A study of penal trends based on quantitative research has made it easier to understand the diversity (Aubusson de Cavarlay, 1987, 1997; Barré, 1994). Another avenue for research is a territorial approach to the penal treatment of ODA cases, which compares current practices in various jurisdictions with a more qualitative approach (Duprez, Kokoreff, Weinberger, 1996, 2001).

Data gathering present a further problem: any study that goes beyond generalities on law and justice requires a critical analysis of penal practices, which in its turn  requires access to data on the activities of various jurisdictions. Such data are largely unavailable. When the 1970 drug act came into force, the courts were asked to perform an assessment role so that more knowledge about the sentencing applied to drug users overall could be gained. The data were gathered between 1971 and 1981, but because the resulting statistics were not accurate, application of the drug act could not be studied satisfactorily. This explains the total lack of data on application of the 1970 drug act between 1984 and 1992. Since 1992, only prescribed therapeutic injunctions have been counted by the courts, and there is no indication as to how such measures were followed up. (Aubusson de Cavarlay, 1997, 9-10) Even when the data are available, it is not always easy to determine what they measure. Do they measure decisions, cases or persons? I believe that a study of legal files supplemented by interviews is a useful and reliable method. Likewise, we could say a great deal about the role of the police, the use of statistics on arrests for use and trafficking, and the biases that they represent. In  fact, we know that the data do not reflect actual illegal activity as much as they reflect actual police activity. They constitute an indirect indicator of police action, a factor that must be borne in mind when using them.

The ambiguous French drug regulation model results in differential practices across the country, and does noting to conceal the twofold issue of the drug act’s equity and efficiency (Henrion, 1995). To avoid hasty generalizations, there must be a new approach on two fronts: first, we must focus not on criminal law as such but rather on how it is applied locally; second, we must focus not on official policies at the national level but on how institutions actually apply them in practice.

 

 

1. Ambiguities in the drug act

 

But first, I would like to come back to the ambiguities in the 1970 drug act. Alain Ehrenberg clearly demonstrated the types of political culture implicit in the drug act, as well as the issues raised by criminal interdiction. Within the perception of the French tradition where the State shapes social order, he writes “The drug users is someone who must be reminded that he is living in society before we can prevent him from destroying himself” (Ehrenberg, 1996). But the drug act also reveals the ambiguities in the French model that generate an ongoing tension between criminal and medical laws, playing on the confusion between a public problem and a psychopathological problem, to justify criminalization more effectively.  The 1970 drug act resulted from both a normative (De Munck, 1996) and political (Bernat de Célis, 1992) compromise between a number of reference models. Basically, it holds two concepts of the drug user, the delinquent and the patient. There is the repressive aspect characterized by penalizing private use — a provision not in the previous 1916 drug act — a prosecution procedure overriding common law, severe sentences for traffickers, which were re-enforced with the adoption of the new Criminal Code in 1994; the Code made organized trafficking in gangs punishable by a life sentence[6]. But there is also a medical aspect, which promotes treatment for “drug abusers”. Due to pressure from psychiatrists, the legislation provides an option for voluntarily undergoing medical treatment, anonymously and free of charge[7]. The three basic principles of the French care model offered a way of providing refuges in drop-in and health institutions, and of protecting those areas from police action and social control (Morel, 1997, 84).

 

 

Injunctions to undergo treatment

 

The compromise is illustrated by the therapeutic injunction, an unprecedented measure aimed at inducing users to undergo treatment. The injunction was a decision of the Republic’s Solicitor General. Under it, users who agreed to undergo treatment had the charges against them dropped; if they did not agree, they were prosecuted, especially if they were for repeat offenders. The injunction was therefore subject to legal criteria alone.

The injunction and similar measures were viewed with extreme wariness by many parties involved in drug abuse. They failed to see how users could be forced to undergo treatment. Indeed, such measures did not become genuinely efficient until the mid 1980s, and their application led to an often criticized imbalance between the penal approach and the health-oriented approach[8]. This becomes obvious when we compare the number of arrests for use of illegal substances (over 70,000 in 1998, out of a total of 90,000) with the number of therapeutic injunctions handed down (slightly over 8,000) and implemented (nearly 4,000) (Simmat-Durand, 1999).

The assessment of Setbon (1998) shows how unequally the injunction is applied in various jurisdictions and how its results are almost impossible to assess. The author shows the limited effectiveness and efficiency of therapeutic injunctions. Encouragement to undergo treatment is applied inconsistently, “without impact and without any equitable distribution”. Yet it is unlikely that any substantial group of drug users subject to the injunction could in fact receive the treatment they require. “With the sequential, hierarchical structure of the therapeutic injunction process, co‑ordination between the problem (the drug user’s condition), the drug user’s chances of becoming eligible for a therapeutic injunction, the nature of the care provided and the social health objectives are left entirely up to chance.” (Setbon, 1998, 132). As such, the issue is more to determine whether such measures are actually useful than it is to determine the legitimacy of the drug act, though that is where public debate in France is focused.

In fact, a therapeutic injunction is a vague measure allowing for differential application. It is meant to prevent trafficking (by trying to reduce consumption, we try to stop the user from becoming a dealer to fund his own habit), to prevent delinquency (by trying to reduce consumption, so as to reduce offences by users), to prevent repeat offences (which are still tolerated when part of a healing process) and to avoid overcrowding prisons (the penal system contains many drug abusers sentenced for ODA and “hidden” drug users prosecuted for other offences). Given these divergent goals, we clearly see how a social and penal approach has been superimposed over the health care approach.

 

 

Repressing use: the cannabis police

 

Another example of the ambiguous way in which the drug issue is dealt with in France is the existing disparity between the debate on criminalization and current police procedures. The issue comes up regularly, raising many fears rooted in the existing confusion surrounding decriminalization and legalization. Recent polls indicate that opinions are changing rapidly (Beck, Peretti-Watel, 1999). With respect to the prohibition against consuming illegal substances, opinions are divided: 52% of people surveyed believe that the prohibition against cannabis is ineffective; that number is only 48% for heroin. Overall, the people surveyed were not in favour of legalizing cannabis. However, 30% of people did believe that access to cannabis should be regulated.

In spite of those changes, measures to repress use remain strong (see table below), an approach clearly illustrated by the statistics on police activities. Police action involving young people has increased considerably, from 24,588 cannabis-related incidents in 1993 to 73,661 incidents in 2000. Heroin-related police activity has dropped, from 13,299 incidents in 1995 to 4,831 incidents in 2000, while activity related to crack and cocaine use, though much less, has almost doubled, from 997 incidents in 1995 to 1,651 incidents in 2000). The police is essentially a cannabis police.

 

Police activity by product and ODA category between 1985 and 2000.

 

Substance	ODA category	1985	1990	1995	1998	1999	2000
Cannabis	Use Use+resale Trafficking TOTAL	11 896   2 093   1 251 15 240	17 736   2 452   1 926 22 144	36 325   5 386   2 986 44 697	64 479   8 342   2 920 75 741	70 802   8 002   2 948 81 752	73 661   8 688   3 625 85 974
Heroin	Use Use+resale Trafficking TOTAL	8 427   2 266   2 530 13 223	6 522   1 560   2 478 10 560	13 299   4 057   3 329 20 685	6 019   1 450   1356   8 825	4 911   1 230   1 126   7 267	4 831   1 002   1 228   7 061
Cocaine	Use Use+resale Trafficking TOTAL	254      130      228      612	388     127     414     930	651      196      376   1 223	1 925      457      789   3 171	2 087      497   1 003   3 587	1 944      379   1 088   3 411
Crack	Use Use+resale Trafficking TOTAL			346      181        73      600	588      211      183      982	636      177      185      998	707      162      200   1 069
Ecstasy	Use Use+resale Trafficking TOTAL		24          8        13        45	844      278      276   1 398	766      220      199   1 185	711      204      169   1 084	1 432      489      312   2 233
TOTAL	Use Use+resale Trafficking TOTAL	21 133   4 571   4 046 29 750	24 856   4 159   5 198 34 213	52 112 10 213   7 107 69 432	74 633 10 874   5 541 91 048	80 037 10 367   5 506 95 910	83 385 10 954 6 531 100 870

 

Source: OEDT 2001

 

In the above trends, should we be seeing a police strategy of anticipating less active of heroin use because substitute products are being provided? Have the results effected cannabis use in other ways? This is a hypothesis we should not exclude. We also note the disparity between activity related to narcotic use and activity related to narcotic trafficking. Does that indicate that traffickers are becoming more professional (Kokoreff, 2000)? These statistics of course have their limitations, tending to under-estimate the development of local trafficking. “Police forces in Great Britain, Germany and Italy have set up trafficking observation tools. Those tools do not exist in France.”[9] We might expect police forces to shift their focus and concentrate on cannabis trafficking rather than cannabis use. If in the field some police officers denounce the repressive activities engaged in against users, either because of their convictions or because police forces are simply overloaded, the official line remains the same: police officers apply the law, and the growth in police activity related to cannabis use is justified by the increase in cannabis use among young people and by civil disorder in the cities.

Along the same lines, a link is made between substance abuse and delinquency. Among the unsubstantiated statistics around for some 20 years, we find one to the effect that one out of two offenders is a delinquent. This is one way of legitimizing repressive action against drug users, who, as Setbon (1995) showed, is far from being clearly demonstrated. However, Barré’s work shows how complex that link truly is, and how there is nothing mechanical about. In a recent article, Barré states that she has discovered the following in her investigations: a/ delinquents use drugs infrequently; b/ however, drug-using delinquents offend more often than non-users; on the whole, however, offences attributable to drug users, particularly users of hard drugs, is far below the statistics occasionally attributed to them. (Barré, 2001, 4)

 

 

Co-existence of repressive and tolerant practices

 

A third remarkable manifestation of the ambiguity is how, at the local level, repressive practices co-exist with emerging risk-reduction practices. An addict can obtain a clean syringe from a publicly funded facility, but be arrested as he gets off the bus or leaves the facility for possession a narcotic. This somewhat paradoxical state of affairs demonstrates the remarkable, and even brutal, changes that have taken place in recent years. The first public health stand was taken in 1987, by suspending a 1972 decree requiring identification to buy a syringe in a pharmacy. Syringe exchange and steribox sale programs were developed in the early 1990s[10]. the Henrion Report[11] appeared in February 1995, recommending the rapid development of a risk-reduction policy. The report was supported by a range of humanitarian and church authorities, including the Comité Consultatif National d’Ethique (1994), the Commission sociale de l’Episcopat (1997), and the Human Rights League (1996). The media commented widely, ushering in public debate on the risk reduction through the actions of a variety of humanitarian and militant associations. High doses of methadone and buprenorphin (Subutex®) were authorized for marketing in 1995. Subutex® was distributed by general practitioners and with few administrative barriers, so treatment with it developed rapidly, even too rapidly (Lert et al., 1998), while methadone distribution, permitted only in specialized centres, remained much less widespread (Morel, 2001). According to Lert (2000), the number of patients under methadone treatment was estimated at approximately 3,500 in July 1999, while 64,000 patients were on Subutex®[12].

In the field, professionals denounced the police pressures undermining their efforts to implement risk-prevention procedures and facilities. Syringe exchange and AIDS prevention buses were set up near dealing sites to facilitate access to more marginalized users. Though they often attracted the dealers’ ire, these first-line teams negotiated with police to limit arrests. At the local level, therefore, the teams managed to co-exist with police forces. The Association française pour la réduction des risques goes even further, by stigmatizing the inconsistencies in actual supply patterns, noting that it was obviously absurd to distribute syringes and then prohibit their use. In Switzerland and Germany, there are injection facilities making it possible to manage drug use and guaranteeing the hygienic and safe conditions required for risk-free injection. With such facilities, users have no need to use public spaces or building stairways.[13]

 

2. Differential  application

 

The law, which is founded on the principle of universality, is supposed to apply to everyone and everything in the same manner. It must apply equally in Marseille, Paris and Brest, as well as in Strasbourg and Lille. During interviews, the universality principle was liberally quoted by magistrates in defining their activities: applying the law, complying with procedures, and working towards the manifestation of truth. On that basis, at least at the outset, they tend to focus less on the local implications of their actions and on actual jurisdiction in which they operate.

Yet differential application of the criminal law has been an established fact for over ten years, as a number of studies have shown[14]. Such differential application, which emerged in so many cases during the 1990s, is now firmly established. A recent report on criminal policy submitted to the Guard of the Seal in 1999 confirms this. Prosecution thresholds are defined on the basis of substance quantities seized and the substances themselves, as well as on jurisdictions[15]. Other activities were also designed for substance-abusing offenders, while post-sentencing measures were adapted for substance abusers in a small number of jurisdictions.

One way to summarize the arresting process in the area of drug use and trafficking is this: the principles are uniform, but their application is not. Institutional impacts are closely related to location-specific criteria. Thus, Customs authorities might play an important or less important role, depending on nearness of the location in question to the border and the means at their disposal: financial constraints may limit arrests, while drugs can be considered as goods that generate taxes. Police arrests are directly associated with the services available, for example the amount of drugs involved in the trafficking and the availability of a nearby regional police detective force. The data collected are also used by prosecutors in determining their approach. In some courts, like Lille, individuals are not prosecuted for use, except if large amounts or offenders known to the police are involved. Though it is not provided for in the legislation, magistrates do make a distinction between hard drugs and soft drugs.

On the basis of a comparative study of criminal policies implemented in three jurisdictions (Nanterre in the Hauts-de-Seine Region, Bobigny in the Seine Saint-Denis Region, and Lille in the North), there are three spheres in which we find non-uniform application: the police forces which intervene, the way courts are organized, and the procedures applied. By way of background information (see table), it is important to note that Hauts-de-Seine and Seine-Saint-Denis are two departments in the suburbs near Paris. The first is home to a world of contrasts: it is the second-richest department in France, but is also contains a number of neighbourhoods full of low-income social housing. The second is a typical example of a ‘red’ suburb, with a long-standing tradition of blue-collar workers hard hit by the social impact of the economic crisis. The Nord department, a border zone, is a former industrial basin which has also been affected by the decline in industrial activity. In these three examples, a sustainable parallel economy has developed. Drug dealing is just one aspect of this economy, which can be explained as a means of adapting to the upheavals in the labour market. Heroine, but increasingly cannabis and alcohol and mood-altering drugs, are becoming commonplace in this culture of self destructive behaviour: most drugs used are mood-altering drugs, as opposed to recreational products.

 

Comparison of some indicators in Senie-Saint-Denis, Hauts-de-Seine, Nord and national-wide

	Inhabitants	Area in sq. km	Unemployment rate (%)	Crime rate per 1000 inhabitants	Number of indictments due to ODAs (1998)
National	58,722,674	543,965	10%	60.72	83,797
Seine-Saint-Denis	1,410,180	236	14.8%	84.03	2,470
Haut-de-Seine	1,418,780	176	9.9%	69.05	2,416
Nord	2,564,818	5,743	-	71.73	8,657

 

 

Differences in police service activities

 

A geographic approach highlights the differences in public security service activities. On the basis of police statistics recorded in 1994, it would appear that in Seine-Saint-Denis, out of the 2,059 offences identified, more than 90% were processed by public security services (commissariats, city police forces and the police force drug squad) and just under 6% were processed by the departmental police detective service. A very small number of cases were dealt with by the gendarmerie (1.6%) and customs officials (1%). In Hauts-de-Seine, the percentages are approximately the same. Between 1988 and 1994, 62% of procedures were established by public security services, 22% by the gendarmerie and 16% by the police detective service. In 1996, out of a total of 2,984 arrests, 80% were processed by public security services; 12% by the gendarmerie, and 6.4% by the police detective service.

However, in the Nord department, where 5,605 offences were reported in 1994, nearly 45% of all cases were opened by customs officials; 43% by public security services, 10% by the gendarmerie and 2% by the police detective service. In trafficking alone, nearly 70% of all cases were initiated by customs officials.

An examination of cases processed by the courts reflects a different picture for activities undertaken by the various services involved. The Bobigny departmental court is an especially interesting example: at the trial level, the number of cases initiated by public security services is equivalent to that initiated by the police detective service. This can be explained by the fact that the latter has specialized in drug trafficking, while the public security services, whose role is general in nature, recorded about 90% of the arrests. In those cases, the vast majority of drug users were not officially charged.

There is evidence of competition among the services, as well as of conflicting procedures. For example, there is competition between an inflationist approach designed to increase the number of arrests and seizures — sometimes prematurely — and initiatives that aim to go beyond users and/or street dealers. The effect is paradoxical, because the presence of public security units in the field contributes to the entrenchment of illegal activities and can hinder the work of police detectives.

 

Organization of the courts

 

From an organizational perspective, some jurisdictions have set up specialized sections to deal with the court cases resulting from offences under the drug act. At the Bobigny departmental court the “drug cell” that processes all cases involving trafficking and addictions (including therapeutic injunctions) changed completely. Created in 1996, the new organization extended its purview to include criminal cases and the fight against organized youth crime. At the Nanterre departmental court, a reorganization of the various sections resulted in a merger of the sections dealing with drugs and minors. The creation of this section — which is unique in France, to the best of our knowledge — is justified by the need to balance the judges’ workloads; it stems from a worrisome increase in the involvement of young people in minor cases of trafficking in neighbourhoods considered “sensitive”. At the same time, the role of the financial sections has been developing with a view to gaining a better understanding of operations drug money laundering operations — a “money laundering culture”, in the words of a prosecutor. However, there are still some shortcomings in this area. The Lille departmental court does not have any specialized sections. This reality is a result of the added pressure from increased caseloads and understaffing in comparison with other jurisdictions.

 

Adjusting procedures to meet local requirements

 

The way procedures are used illustrates the differential practices in various courts. Procedures are born if not out of the imagination of judges then out of requirements in the jurisdictions to adapt to the local context. What has changed are the requirements to open a file: in other words, the development of a procedure to cover immediate appearances which, exceptionally, has become commonplace. Another procedure has been implemented: summons by the police detective or customs officer. This procedure has been used in a number of cases involving offences under the drug act but also for other offences. It represented up to 70% of the total number of cases in Lille in comparison with 50% in Nanterre. This also underscores the non-specific nature of drugs.

Criminalization of drug-related cases is also an indicator of differential practices. The procedure, which is extremely cumbersome as it involves long, costly hearings and a meeting over several days of a special assize court made up of seven members of the bench, varies immensely from one jurisdiction to another. In Nanterre, five cases of importing cannabis by a gang were subject to a hearing. In Bobigny, about a dozen criminal cases have been opened but they are often referred to a correctional court. However, in Lille, no criminal cases were opened although a number of them could have been made criminal cases.

The application of therapeutic injunction measures as an alternative to criminal proceedings enables us to quantify disparities in practices. Since the early 1990s, there has been a significant increase in the number of therapeutic injunctions for so-called “hard drug” users, whereas in the past this measure was not used much. Unequal importance is also placed on this increase by the courts (see the following table). Data from 1994 are revealing: while the number of therapeutic injunctions ordered by the Bobigny departmental court was 1110; they represented two-thirds of all cases for the Paris court (640), a mere one-third for the Nanterre court (377) and one-seventh for the Lille court (161). Moreover, the regular statistical follow-up is inconsistent: most jurisdictions have been recording injunctions only since 1992, though some have been doing so since 1991 and a rare few since 1990. Starting in 1998, measures that have been successfully completed (and that are filed under “no further action”) are accounted for, but not measures ordered. Moreover, the scope of those measures has been broadened to include reminders of the legislation and warnings issued by the courts or their delegates. Tracking of these measures was inadequate prior to 1998 and in some instances they were filed under the generic “conditional approval” category.

 

Number of therapeutic injunctions ordered by the courts from 1992 to 1998

 

Departmental Court	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998
Bobigny	735	860	1110	926	1406	990	304
Lille	119	248	161	196	176	195	103
Nanterre	-	-	377	304	263	234*	231*
Paris	454	413	640	-	-	-	-
National	-	-	7678	8630	8812	8052	4254

*According to data provided by the Nanterre departmental court

 

Source: Annuaire statistique de la Justice 2000

 

In examining the data on people who appeared at convocation hearings — this is not to be confused with measures ordered — it is also apparent that the number of people smoking hashish is very high in comparison with the number of heroine users: in 1991 the gap was 49% (cannabis) to 6.3% (heroine); it balanced out in 1992 (45% to 44%), increased in 1993 (59% compared to 37.5%) and rose to 62.5%, compared to 34% in 1994. In the same year, the Nanterre departmental court ordered 87% of all therapeutic injunctions for heroine, 6% of those for cannabis and 6% of those for cocaine.

This example illustrates the significant differences in criminal policies regarding offences under the drug act. In Nanterre, people arrested are referred to the court for repeat heroine use; in Bobigny, however, procedures are launched when “soft” drugs are used, though they are socio-medical preventive measures rather than criminal procedures. For heroine users, therapeutic injunctions are ordered immediately on the basis of  the user’s criminal record. If he has a record of serious offences  or if a stay of execution did not include the requirement to undergo therapy, the case is turned over to the courts for proceedings to be undertaken. For cannabis users who are more or less on the fringe of society and going through rough times (family conflict, on the run, drop-outs or unemployed), therapeutic injunctions are a means of helping users return to society. Generally, follow-up is short and easy to comply with, and success rates are high.

 

3. Inequities under the drug act

The changing attitudes in France are reflected in the fact that smoking cannabis is no longer considered as significant as it was, in the on-and-off debate on decriminalization, in the trend towards distinguishing between use, abuse and addiction, regardless of the drug (legal or illegal) involved, and in the acknowledgment of the real risks involved. Official indicators reveal that about one out of three young people have smoked cannabis at least once in their lives and that the number of young people who have smoked more than ten times doubled between 1993 and 1997. A shift in government policy therefore seems inevitable. According to Nicole Maestracci, President of the Mission interministérielle de lutte contre la drogue et la toxicomanie (MILDT) (Intergovernmental Mission to Fight Drugs and Addiction): “Abstinence cannot be the only goal of prevention any more. It is true that it is better not to take drugs, but there is no such thing as a drug-free society.” In short, it seems that a more pragmatic approach will follow what until now has been an approach focused almost exclusively on legal punishment and marked by a moralizing attitude. The issue is not to embrace drugs, nor simply to give up or be lenient about drugs. It is to make the law credible once more, and in so doing to apply it consistently and not arbitrarily, as has often been the case.

Yet in practice the police arrest a great many drug users, in and around Paris as well. Courts deal predominantly with cases originating from neighbourhoods considered sensitive because they contain more users, and more cannabis and heroin dealers. The increasing number of ecstasy and cocaine seizures at the border should not make us forget that police and the courts have very little impact on places where people actually buy and take drugs. The increasing number of raves, where young people listen to techno music and take ecstasy (considered very cool with the “in” crowd), are rarely patrolled by the police. We are not calling for a sharp crackdown on raves. However, it is a simple fact that police and the courts approach people of different social status differently. Although this is difficult to quantify, it appears that more people in the “higher” strata of society experiment with drugs. Almost 50% of children in wealthy families have experimented with cannabis, while that figure is only 20% for children in working-class families.

Therefore, people at the margins of society and urban areas are increasingly criminalized; this phenomenon may be compared to the process described by Wacquant (1999). It also appears that criminalizing some drugs and tolerating others, which are just as dangerous but are regulated by government, creates new inequities in French society. Criminalizing the social habits of the most deprived, who are forced to live in poor neighbourhoods, masks tolerance of illicit drug use by the rich and exacerbates the feeling of injustice of marginalized young people.

 

Conclusion

How can we reconcile both public health and law and order concerns under a single consistent and pragmatic public policy? These are the issues underpinning the mechanisms and measures implemented in France over the past few years. Treating illegal products, like cannabis and heroin, and legal products, like tobacco, alcohol and medication, equally under the law already represents a minor revolution in a country where alcohol is a mainstay of social life, including the workplace. But there is a great deal of resistance, politicians are often reluctant to change their position and, in a context where drugs are increasingly associated with urban juvenile delinquency, the stigma associated with drug use remains strong. The government is the main actor in this area. It is addressing the problem of illegal drug use by treating it more like a medical problem and providing drug substitution programs. However, society’s changing attitude has little impact on the situation and behaviour of drug users. If in marginalized urban areas drug use and trafficking are part of some people’s lives, an ad hoc response might be to focus on prevention programs. But though this is a principle, it is not being considered a priority.

In day-to-day police activities, the crackdown on illegal drugs in “sensitive” neighbourhoods and towns is only partially effective, both for internal reasons (lack of co-ordination, the effects of competition and limited resources) and external reasons (the layout of a place, and well-organized dealers and trafficking, among other things). Dealers have therefore developed a strategy of setting up drug houses in outlying areas, while the police have focused on cracking down in downtown areas. The limited effectiveness of public authorities may be veiling a deeper crisis, a crisis in which the fundamental approach has ceased to work. How can a user be released just hours after being arrested on the street? How credible is legislation that makes it nearly impossible to move cannabis and heroin users along within the system? If the problem is one of application, amending the legislation will have no effect: changing the law will not necessarily change the way it is applied by the courts.

 

 

         Michel Kokoreff

                            Université de Lille 1, Clersé-Césames (NSRC)

 

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