mixed reactions after left-wing senators call for cannabis legalization

For public health, for disadvantaged neighborhoods, for state finances, cannabis consumption must be legalized, argue 31 left-wing senators in a column published by The world Wednesday, August 10, specifying that they intend to table a bill to this effect.

In this text, the elect argue that “The repression undertaken within the framework of prohibition is ineffective, inefficient and unjust. It does not protect our young people from the damage to their health caused by uncontrolled consumption. It maintains certain districts in a very strong dependence on trafficking, which results in unbearable insecurity and violence for the inhabitants. It mobilizes substantial resources for a result that is ultimately almost nil”.

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They reject the hypothesis of decriminalization, “characterized by a maintenance of the prohibition with a removal of the penalties incurred”seeing there “a renunciation of the public authorities which would amputate themselves of the means to act”.

On the other hand, in their eyes, “Legalization would make it possible to control the sanitary quality of the products consumed. It would also serve to greatly curb traffic for the benefit of these disaster areas. Legalization must finally be a social shock to free the populations who suffer from the places of deal ”. Finally, they add, “Eventually, new tax revenues should be drawn from the cannabis trade, and from the savings made in the area of ​​justice and the police”.

“We are attacking the end of the chain”

On the left, the initiative of these senators was applauded by Esther Benbassa, environmental senator from Paris, who did not sign their platform. “I had tabled a text to this effect in 2014, debated in 2015. So, the socialist group of Senate had voted against, like the UMP,” she recalled on Twitter, saying to herself “happy to see the circle of reason widening”.

Guest of RMC Thursday August 11Sandrine Rousseau also said she was in favor of the bill planned by the Socialist senators. “I will support this idea, especially because today cannabis is the source of the worst trafficking, and it provides a whole secondary economy with international trafficking, and legalization makes it possible to fight against this trafficking in a much more effective way” , judged the ecologist deputy from Paris.

“Today we are attacking consumers, at the end of the chain”, she continued, considering that legalization would allow “to have a real public health policy, to check who we sell to, and what we sell. In many regions in France, and in particular in the border regions, the products sold are cut with other products that are extremely harmful to health, which create addictions extremely quickly”.

“Imposing the Law of Delinquents”

On the contrary, on the right, Othman Nasrou, vice-president (Les Républicains) of the Ile-de-France region, denounced the initiative of the senators on the left. “I want to reiterate my total opposition to this idea. I saw in Trappes [Yvelines] how trafficking plagues our neighborhoods”, he denounced on Twitter, referring to his forum published by Opinion in January 2021. “It is true that the battle against drug trafficking is, for the moment, largely lost”, he recognizes in this text, but “Changing the laws of the Republic for lack of being able to enforce them is in reality imposing the law of delinquents on everyone”.

These latter “Are they suddenly going to leave the underground economy and convert to legal sales, which will necessarily be less profitable? With legalization, the cannabis sold in the neighborhoods will always come from contraband, it will be cheaper and other more dangerous substances will gain momentum”, also judges Mr. Nasrou. It calls for the reinforcement of the police and penal response, but also for measures for integration, because “the alternative offered to our young people cannot be only a choice between easy drug money and a job market that seems inaccessible”.

Recently, some right-wing mayors have come out in favor of legalization, like Arnaud Robinet, in Reims, or Boris Ravignon, in Charleville-Mézières. Faced with a very divided opinion and a taboo that has jumped internationally – Uruguay, Canada and around fifteen American states authorize the recreational use of cannabis – the political class is wondering, all parties combined. The executive remains reluctant: the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, is fiercely opposed to the legalization of cannabis, and has made the fight against trafficking one of his priorities, with the support of Emmanuel Macron.

At the start of 2019, nearly one in two French people (45%) said they were in favor of legalization, according to a survey by the French Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT).

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The World with AFP


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