Paris (AFP)
The construction of a wall between Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis, described as a "wall of shame", shed light on the consumption and trafficking of crack in the capital.
What is this highly addictive substance?
Who are the consumers?
What problems do they pose?
.
Crack, the "poor man's drug"
Known as the "poor man's drug", crack is an inexpensive derivative of cocaine.
The white powder is diluted with baking soda or ammonia.
Its effects are more powerful but more ephemeral than those of cocaine, which pushes users to multiply the catches.
Crack is sold as a pebble or pancake and inhaled through a crack pipe - or sometimes injected.
The pebble costs around 15 euros.
Users in great precariousness
Most consumers are men of all ages in great precariousness and socially isolated, summarizes a study co-carried out by the French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT) and Inserm.
More than two thirds of users are homeless or accommodated in a social structure.
On Friday, the evacuation on the edge of Seine-Saint-Denis concerned about fifty of the 13,000 users in Ile-de-France estimated by the OFDT in 2019.
What therapeutic solutions?
Great precariousness, social isolation, psychiatric disorders for some… the support of crack users is very complex.
Drug addicts may be forcibly interned temporarily by decision of the prefect of police or a doctor only in the event of a risk to others or to public order.
A practice whose long-term effectiveness is questioned by many specialists.
People gathered at Porte de la Villette after an operation to evacuate drug addicts from the Eole gardens, September 24, 2021 in Paris Christophe ARCHAMBAULT AFP / Archives
The latter put more emphasis on devices such as lower risk consumption rooms (SCMR, or "shoot rooms") and insist on the need to socially support consumers towards abstinence and remission.
Disarmed police and justice
"Crack is not just a police problem", summarizes a police source, "it is something sanitary, societal. Our job is to patch up".
At the beginning of September, before the construction of the wall between Paris and Pantin / Aubervilliers, the police headquarters highlighted "more than five police operations" carried out each day.
If some consumers and traffickers are brought to justice for repressive measures, the prosecution favors the therapeutic injunction, forcing the user to go to medical appointments regularly.
606 were pronounced by the prosecution in 2020, according to the police headquarters.
North-east of Paris, epicenter of crack
Observed since the 1980s, the consumption of crack became more visible in Ile-de-France in 2017. Drug addicts and dealers then settle on the "crack hill", near the Porte de la Chapelle, in the north-east from Paris.
Since the evacuation, in November 2019, of this land in unsanitary conditions, the crack ecosystem has been moved to the north-east of Paris: from the Place Stalingrad to the Villette district, via the Eole gardens. .
Crack consumers in the gardens of Eole, June 29, 2021 before their evacuation JOEL SAGET AFP / Archives
Faced with the anger of the inhabitants, the mayor of Paris regretted that the transfer on Friday only "shifted the problem" while the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti entrusted "to think about lasting solutions" on RTL .
The prefect of police Didier Lallement stressed that the operation of Friday is only a "temporary" solution.
A political issue
The problem of consumers and crack trafficking takes on a political dimension, crystallizing the opposition between the PS mayor of Paris and presidential candidate Anne Hidalgo and the government.
Also presidential candidate, the president (Libres !, ex-LR) of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse requested on BFMTV the opening of a "detoxification center".
The mayor of Paris wants the creation of medico-social places of reception and rest for the users.
She had undertaken to open one before the fall, receiving the green light on September 15 from Matignon.
A drug addict prepares a crack pipe, December 2, 2020 in Paris JOEL SAGET AFP / Archives
Prime Minister Jean Castex also arbitrated in favor of the extension of the device, beyond 2022, of "shooting rooms", a subject which divided even within the government.
Two exist: one in Paris, the other in Strasbourg.
© 2021 AFP