This advisory body of civil society, where associations and unions sit, has created an ad hoc commission to open the debates "often caricatured on the subject".
He observes that "from the point of view of public health, the preventive actions carried out are generally ineffective, in particular among young consumers who are increasingly exposed to uncontrolled products".
Prohibition annihilates any message of prevention, adds the Cese, and "strongly mobilizes the police and justice services, without any real effect on the scale of trafficking and the level of consumption which remains the highest in Europe".
Inspired by the legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada, Malta or even by 2024 in Germany, and in the face of "the bitter failure of the policy followed for fifty years" in France, as summed up by his vice -president Jean-François Naton, the Cese suggests the supervised authorization of the production, distribution and consumption of this psychoactive plant.
The Cese recommends distribution in legal points of sale subject to licensing, prohibited to minors and where a strong message of prevention would be disseminated.
Today in France, "90% of cannabis is smoked, it is the worst use", explains Florent Compain, one of the rapporteurs.
The idea is to create a French production and distribution sector where "the logic of public health takes precedence over profits with a framework for production volumes".
In addition to the creation of a specific tax allocated to prevention policies, the Cese recommends no longer criminalizing the use and cultivation of cannabis for personal use and allowing individual cultivation in "collectives" by taking the example of social cannabis. clubs.
Cannabis remains the most widespread illicit drug in the French population, according to a study by the French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT).
Conducted among 23,661 adults aged 18 to 64, this study on cannabis consumption in 2021 reports that 10.6% of the population smoked it during the year.
© 2023 AFP