After Portugal and Oregon in the United States, a Canadian province is experimenting with the decriminalization of the possession of small quantities of hard drugs such as heroin or fentanyl. Hit hard by the opiate crisis which has claimed more than 10,000 overdose deaths since 2016, or six people a day, Canada is trying a new approach, for the moment limited to British Columbia, the epicenter of the crisis.
How can this change in policy help combat this health crisis? Can this new legislation be enough? And can we imagine the decriminalization of the consumption of hard drugs in France? The Canadian approach is in any case considered “interesting” by Stéphanie Ladel, addictologist and prevention specialist contacted by 20 Minutesas part of the destigmatization of the consumer.
What can this decriminalization of hard drugs be used for?
“It’s an approach that is part of the artillery that interests us to work on destigmatizing consumers,” explains Stéphanie Ladel. Decriminalizing hard drugs in the context of a health crisis linked to opiates caused to the foundations by the pharmaceutical industry will indeed allow consumers to come out of their silence. “It is not because you are a consumer that you should be judged in your social environment and it is a solution to remove shame and financial, police and legal sanctions”, she continues. The fact that the police no longer confiscate their drugs will also reduce their stress, Scott MacDonald, a doctor at a clinic in Vancouver, told AFP. “It also helps to get out of marginality and to find a link with society, to renew the dialogue, which can only be positive”, abounds Stéphanie Ladel.
And when the dialogue, the confidence, becomes easier, the consumer will more easily be able to ask for help, to get out of his isolation. “We are going to help people dare to say that they need support, but for opiates, there are possible treatments, in particular social and psychological support”, underlines the addictologist once more.
Can decriminalization stand on its own?
However, this support, this environment of care, must be provided. If the judicial system is relieved, without support from the health system, people who consume will not get out of it. This is, for example, what is happening in Oregon, in the United States, where few people have accepted treatment and overdoses have increased. “This decriminalization must be accompanied by access to care at the height, calibrated, it is part of a whole,” confirms Stéphanie Ladel.
This support system makes it possible to reduce the risks associated with injections, for example, and the damage resulting from taking the product. “It’s an opportunity to get out of addiction, to help reduce consumption,” adds the addictologist. For this, professionals must be trained to welcome the words of these people who are ready to “confess” their consumption. “Because that’s the big problem at the start, it’s talking regarding it, and we have to help this liberation of speech,” she develops.
Can the experiment be transposed to France?
It’s not just in North America that hard drugs are wreaking havoc. If the consumption of opiates has not reached these levels in France, “there is all the same a hidden population which consumes hard drugs, a significant percentage”, according to Stéphanie Ladel. Opiates, cocaine, MDMA, methamphetamine… The line is long and concerning the consumption of these drugs in France, “there are a lot of people”, she assures. But in this country where the slightest opening of a supervision room for supervised drug consumption, commonly called a “shoot room”, provokes indignation and rejection from local residents, the possibility of introducing such a policy of decriminalization of the consumer seems particularly thorny.
However, these rooms make it possible to better secure the neighborhoods concerned, they are “more supervised places with a medical, paramedical and psychological team that keeps an eye on the consumer. And a person who sets foot in care can better address the subject of reducing their consumption, ”explains Stéphanie Ladel. “It doesn’t make people consume more, it just gets them out of the woodwork to talk regarding it,” she insists. The addictologist then regrets that the population is not better informed regarding the benefits of these consumer assistance policies. But in France, unlike Canada or the United States, the consumer of opiates is often singled out, when in America he is considered more as a victim of the pharmaceutical industry. “The proportion of consumption is however not negligible in France and in Europe, but the media treatment is different”, underlines the practitioner. And in a country where the debate on the legalization or decriminalization of cannabis is already at a standstill, not sure that the one on hard drugs will soon be on the executive’s agenda.
