“I have the case of a worker who takes coke and falls from his beam”: how the treatment takes place in the addiction department of the Toulouse University Hospital

Professor Nicolas Franquitto, addictologist at Toulouse University Hospital, is well placed to know that today cocaine has penetrated all social circles: “We took care of a waiter who snorted a gram of cocaine during his working night , he had a heart attack and almost died at 28.” Another case, a Portuguese worker who took it to go to work: “he fell from his beam and shattered his pelvis.” There is also Olivier, the teacher in his fifties, divorced and self-conscious, who pays “sugar babies” (young call girls) to provide him, among other services, with white powder. On the front line, the practitioner observes an increase in cocaine consumption, with increasingly young patients (sometimes 16 years old) and women who are increasingly affected: “These are people in the workforce: athletes, salespeople, caregivers “We are also particularly vigilant in Toulouse in monitoring students from the health faculty or engineering schools.”

“Emotionally charged” focus groups

Treatment at the CHU clinical addiction department is structured around personalized support and discussion groups. This service treats nearly three hundred people annually, welcoming voluntary patients or those under care order. “To come and talk about their addiction during group workshops, you always need a room with a window, “the view of the outside is important for a form of escape, the exchanges are charged with emotion”, slips the head of service. The workshops range from the management of compulsive urges (craving) to professional reintegration. The service provides comprehensive care: cases of comorbidities are hospitalized, while others can benefit from outpatient consultations.

Precarious populations, who often consume “based” cocaine (smoke or in the form of crack) are redirected towards the medico-social network (CSAPA and CAARUD). In France, there are an estimated 600,000 regular cocaine users, a figure which reflects the growing scale of the phenomenon.