C’is official: 1.1 million people used cocaine in France in 2023. An alarming and unprecedented figure, explained by the latest study by the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Tendencies (OFDT), published this Wednesday 15 January. This data is all the more worrying given that in 2022, France had “only” 600,000 annual consumers, almost half as many.
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“The evolution of working conditions, with workers who use it to “stay at work”, either to support intensive paces (catering), or to cope with the arduous working conditions (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 officials facing “drug scum” There is also 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 ago,” she continues. “It is among young adults that there have been the greatest increases in experimentation and use during the year”, particularly for stimulants such as cocaine and ecstasy/MDMA, comments Ivana Obradovic . This increase had already been pointed out last June.
2,700 tonnes of cocaine produced in 2022
The OFDT report also 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 production has in fact never been so high in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru – the three main producing countries – with 2,700 tonnes of cocaine in 2022 compared to 1,134 tonnes in 2010, according to the United Nations Office against drugs and crime.
Europe is on the way to becoming the world’s largest market, to the delight of trafficking networks. The study thus points out that the development of the use of cocaine, intended to be smoked or injected, is particularly significant among marginalized people, where it constitutes “the most striking trend”.
ALSO READ Between drugs and corruption, France is slowly taking the path of a narco-statePeople living on the street are particularly affected: the possibilities of purchasing small quantities, for a few euros, “has the effect of shortening the time frames linked to consumption” and, by extension, of reducing the amount of money necessary for ‘purchase. Workers in the reception and risk reduction support center for drug users (Caarud) see consumption increasing throughout the day.
The centers are deprived
Many women in precarious situations are also affected, in particular victims of physical and sexual violence, and more specifically prostitutes, who are more numerous in this context. But former heroin users, followed for many years for opioid substitution treatment (OST), are also victims of this intensification of cocaine-based use.
This increase in consumption is also combined with more specific difficulties encountered by professionals in the fight against addiction, particularly with regard to the case of “craving” (consumption drive, characteristic of addiction).
ALSO READ “Cocaine represents a threat to European democracies” Consumers are thus placed “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”
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Medical deserts, particularly long consultation times, fear of stigmatization, difficulty of access to common treatments are all reasons which highlight, according to the OFDT, the difficulties for consumers to turn to stopping cocaine use. Which therefore reaches levels never before reached, and therefore particularly worrying.
And this, despite the repression: the French authorities seized 23.5 tonnes of cocaine in 2023, compared to 4.1 tonnes in 2010. Over the first eleven months of 2024, nearly 47 tonnes of cocaine were seized. been seized.
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