"The fixed drug fine misses its target"

Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, this Monday -

• Since Tuesday, drug consumption is punishable by a fine, without going through the court box.

• A change that is part of a global trend: the repression of drugs in France.

• Marie Jauffret-Roustide, sociologist at Inserm, explains the origins and biases of this trend.

From this Tuesday, September 1, drug users arrested can be directly fined (if they are of age, admit the facts and are in possession of less than ten grams of cocaine or one hundred grams of cannabis), without going to court.

The amount of the fine for such acts is set at 200 euros, but can vary between 150 and 450 euros.

A new measure announced with great fanfare by Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, and which aims to help the police and the gendarmerie in the fight against drugs.

However, beyond ministerial statements, the measure is greeted with skepticism.

Marie Jauffret-Roustide, sociologist at Inserm (National Institute for Health and Medical Research) and working on anti-drug policies, explains why.

Why such skepticism about this new measure?

This flat-rate fine misses its target because it attacks users and does not attack the crux of the problem, which is traffic.

The main question to ask is that of the legitimacy to repress users.

This makes no sense and has to be fundamentally questioned.

It is the damage linked to drug use that must be the object of attention, through a proactive policy of risk reduction and prevention.

Moreover, for cannabis, which is the main affected by the flat-rate fine, the available data show that the majority of French people have already experimented with it without this causing them any specific problem, that most users have regulated and controlled consumption, and that only a minority has a problematic use that can put them in difficulty or even make them suffer (in the event of dependence) and which must be helped.

France has chosen a repressive approach embodied in the law of December 31, 1970. What changes the fixed fine is the end of the possibility for the user to be brought before a judge who could order an orientation towards care, an opportunity which could be useful to a minority of users.

With the flat-rate fine, there is no longer this gateway to care.

Users will only be in contact with police officers who will punish users with a fine.

Another problem posed by this fixed fine will be the arbitrary sanctions.

Several sociological studies show that in the public sphere, we are not all equal when it comes to police checks.

We can put forward the hypothesis that those who will be checked will always be the same and the most vulnerable and, among them, some will certainly not be able to pay this fine.

The measure was also deemed ineffective by the Syndicate of the judiciary, which denounces a political will to be purely repressive, doomed to failure.

Is this political will purely French?

The choice of France goes against the global trend: the legalization of cannabis, in particular, is advancing in many countries, for example in several American states such as Canada or Uruguay.

It does not seem to be accompanied by an increase in consumption among young people, the population in which cannabis can expose to greater risks, in particular cognitive.

However, the legalization of cannabis requires attention to certain risks, such as the road risk of driving under the influence of cannabis or the very high concentration of certain products, especially in countries which have chosen a very liberal legalization model.

Another famous model is the Dutch model with regulated places of consumption, which are the coffee-shops.

Finally, the latest model, that of Portugal which has decided to decriminalize the use of all drugs.

All the money that will be saved in the fight and repression against users will be able to be used in prevention and health.

This last model is, in my opinion, the most effective and the most respectful of users' rights and individual freedoms.

This allows us to recognize that users are citizens like everyone else in our society.

Why does France seem to be locked into the whole repressive?

The subject is, in France, most often discussed under the moral angle, and there is a permanent fear of the policies to appear proselytizing while not repressing.

It is important to send the message that decriminalizing use does not mean abandoning prevention and care, quite the contrary.

However, there has been an evolution in recent years with more and more policies calling for decriminalization or legalization to be put on the political agenda with a real citizen debate, based on rational arguments and respectful of people's rights, putting a distance between prejudices and ideology.

We have observed, at the international level, that the repressive approach creates more damage than benefits, it does not even manage to reduce consumption among young people.

France has the highest level of cannabis use among young people, which is indicative of the failure of the repressive approach.

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