In France, cocaine consumption has virtually doubled over one 12 months, in line with the most recent OFDT research | EUROtoday
It’sis official: 1.1 million folks used cocaine in France in 2023. An alarming and unprecedented determine, defined by the most recent research by the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT), revealed this Wednesday 15 January. This information is all of the extra worrying on condition that in 2022, France had “only” 600,000 annual shoppers, virtually half as many.
“The evolution of working conditions, with workers who use it to “stay at work”, both to assist intensive paces (catering), or to deal with the arduous working situations (fishermen)”, partly explains the explosion in consumption, underlines Ivana Obradovic, deputy director of the OFDT, to Agence France-Presse.
ALSO READ “We are going to burn you and your town hall”: rural elected officers dealing with “drug scum” There can also be the “diversification of forms of consumption, with the diffusion of cocaine based (crack) and the trivialization of the image of cocaine, a drug which has become “familiar” and perceived as “less dangerous” than twenty years in the past,” she continues. “It is among young adults that there have been the greatest increases in experimentation and use during the year”, significantly for stimulants comparable to cocaine and ecstasy/MDMA, feedback Ivana Obradovic . This enhance had already been identified final June.
2,700 tonnes of cocaine produced in 2022
The OFDT report additionally describes “an international context marked by production levels (cannabis, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy/MDMA) which have increased sharply in recent years”, linked to “a context of globalization and the multiplication of economic exchanges “. Global manufacturing has in truth by no means been so excessive in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru – the three foremost producing international locations – with 2,700 tonnes of cocaine in 2022 in comparison with 1,134 tonnes in 2010, in line with the United Nations Office towards medication and crime.
Europe is on the best way to turning into the world’s largest market, to the delight of trafficking networks. The research thus factors out that the event of using cocaine, meant to be smoked or injected, is especially vital amongst marginalized folks, the place it constitutes “the most striking trend”.
ALSO READ Between medication and corruption, France is slowly taking the trail of a narco-statePeople residing on the road are significantly affected: the probabilities of buying small portions, for just a few euros, “has the effect of shortening the time frames linked to consumption” and, by extension, of decreasing the sum of money vital for ‘buy. Workers within the reception and danger discount assist middle for drug customers (Caarud) see consumption rising all through the day.
The facilities are disadvantaged
Many girls in precarious conditions are additionally affected, particularly victims of bodily and sexual violence, and extra particularly prostitutes, who’re extra quite a few on this context. But former heroin customers, adopted for a few years for opioid substitution remedy (OST), are additionally victims of this intensification of cocaine-based use.
This enhance in consumption can also be mixed with extra particular difficulties encountered by professionals within the struggle towards dependancy, significantly with regard to the case of “craving” (consumption drive, attribute of dependancy).
ALSO READ “Cocaine represents a threat to European democracies” Consumers are thus positioned “in emergency situations that are not conducive to relationships with professionals. They thus describe individuals who are “fleeing”, “in stress mode”, disinclined to discuss their consumption practices and whose attendance at Caarud is solely motivated by obtaining consumption materials”, which these centers actually provide. .
Access to care, a major issue
Consumers and professionals thus agree on the insufficiency of existing means to fight addiction, in particular the absence of effective drug treatment or the reluctance to less harmful consumption practices, known as risk reduction. and damages (RDRD). Generally speaking, access to care for people suffering from addiction remains a major reason explaining the development of consumption.
ALSO READ Pierre Palmade accident: “Cocaine is no longer the drug of the elite”
To Discover
Kangaroo of the day
Answer
Medical deserts, significantly lengthy session instances, concern of stigmatization, issue of entry to frequent remedies are all causes which spotlight, in line with the OFDT, the difficulties for shoppers to show to stopping cocaine use. Which due to this fact reaches ranges by no means earlier than reached, and due to this fact significantly worrying.
And this, regardless of the repression: the French authorities seized 23.5 tonnes of cocaine in 2023, in comparison with 4.1 tonnes in 2010. Over the primary eleven months of 2024, almost 47 tonnes of cocaine had been seized. been seized.
https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/en-france-la-consommation-de-cocaine-a-presque-double-sur-un-an-selon-la-derniere-etude-de-l-ofdt-15-01-2025-2580052_23.php