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Alarm Over Rising Cannabis Use: France Launches Campaign
Political Gateway | 02/02/2005

PARIS, Feb 2 (AFP) - Alarmed by the rising consumption of cannabis among French teenagers, the government on Wednesday launched a 10-million euro (13 million dollar) campaign to warn of the drug's harmful effects on physical and mental health.

With more than one in five 18 year-old boys claiming to be regular users -- and more than half of all 17 year-olds having smoked cannabis at least once -- France has the highest consumption rate in Europe along with Britain and the Czech Republic, according to official figures.

The media campaign -- including a series of radio and television advertisements and the distribution of hundreds of thousands of leaflets -- is to "set the myth of cannabis against the reality in order to debunk notions about its alleged harmlessness," the ministry said.

Nearly 250 consultation centres are also to be established across the country, and a telephone hotline set up to advise those tempted by the drug. From the start of the next academic year, the campaign will be extended inside secondary schools.

According to the French Observatory on Drugs and Addiction (OFDT), there are 850,000 regular consumers of cannabis in the country -- of whom 450,000 smoke cannabis every day. The number of 17 year-olds who have experimented with it has doubled in ten years, the OFDT calcalates.

Toxicologists have established that the cannabis widely consumed today is far stronger than the drug that became current in university campuses in the 1960s and 70s, and warn that the psychological damage is greatly underestimated.

Among the harmful effects to be highlighted in the campaign are memory loss, concentration lapses, altered perception and alienation from friends and family.

"There is a syndrome of demotivation which results in a lack of interest in school work and a gradual desocialisation. At the same time we now have proof of the link between cannabis abuse and certain acute or chronic psychotic conditions," said Dr Michel Reynaud, author of Cannabis and Health.

Recent studies have established that cannabis can be a contributory cause in triggering schizophrenia.

Concern over cannabis use has grown in recent years after a series of fatal road accidents in which it was shown that the drug was a cause. In 2003 a law was passed that makes driving under the influence of cannabis a criminal offence, and urine tests are being extended.

"Cannabis has been shown to be responsible for 20 percent of accidents caused by people under 30 years of age," said Patrick Mura, president of the French Society for Analytical Toxicology.

The government is also alarmed by the power of the drug economy in the country's high-immigration city suburbs, to where much the cannabis is initially smuggled from Morocco.

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reggie_the_dog

If the government in the country I live in really believes that only 850,000 out of 65 million people smoke cannabis they are living in la la land.....

If you take a conservative estimate (based on the surveys in the newspaper Liberation where 55 percent of 18 year olds said they had smoked before and where 20 percent of 18 year olds said they were regular smokers) and estimate that around 25 percent of the country smokes that would be more like 16,000,000 smokers.



Just added from an article in Le Monde
"
Les différentes études disponibles sur
la population française permettent de considérer, plus largement, qu'une
dizaine de millions de personnes ont consommé cette plante, aujourd'hui
cultivée et vendue un peu partout dans le monde."

Basically it says that different studies available dealing with the French population allow us to consider, moreover, that around 10,000 people have consumed this plant (in France), a plant which is cultivated and sold more or less all over the world.

Considering that they just found a metric ton of hash in my little town with 5,000 inhabitants I would think that there were more than 850,000 consumers in the whole country.

As for this statement
""Cannabis has been shown to be responsible for 20 percent of accidents caused by people under 30 years of age," What you have to realize is that most of these people also drank alcohol but evidence of smoking hash within the last month trumped out alcohol use that occured just before the accident and made the accidents "caused" by hash instead of alcohol.

The sad thing for the government is that 2 main-stream newspapers, Le Monde and Liberation constantly call for legalization.

As for the idea that cannabis is somehow stronger now than before they are just using the same bull**** "research" that occured in America. Hash/Cannabis/all drugs were LEGAL in France until Dec, 31 1970. So before then "drugs" were no problem and they were not "tested" for strength. In addition most cannabis consumed in France in Hash from Morocco

You have to remember that we have a right wing government today in France and they want an excuse to cut school funding and increase police and military funding. Our president (Chirac) smokes tobacco and drinks a ****load of alcohol. They have recently said that a ban on alcohol advertising would not include wine made in France so this effort to slow hash smoking (weed is very rare here) is just an effort to help the wine industry.

The last statement really tells you what it is all about

"The government is also alarmed by the power of the drug economy in the country's high-immigration city suburbs, to where much the cannabis is initially smuggled from Morocco."

As an immigrant who lived in a high-immigration area of Paris I can say that yes, the vast majority of hash in France comes from Morocco. They grow a ****load of weed, its like the Mexican weed that floods into the USA. Of course here in France growing a single plant can get you 20 years in jail, so we all continue to buy hash from Morocco. The government knows that the best way to cut the Moroccan industry would be to do what Spain did and legalize self production but they want to support the mafia so they do not do this. At the same time it gives the racist police (not saying all cops are racist just that this is used as an excuse by the cops that are racist) an excuse to hassle the tan people (Moroccans, Algerians etc...) and the blacks.

The government knows their program is bull****, Journalists are going to have a field day with this. Did you notice that they are only spending 10 million euros on this project or about 16 cents per person.

More than 10 million grams of hash will be smoked today in france, so more than 35 million euros will be burned today alone.
Every single country on our borders has decrim now. Spain, Switzerland, and Belgium let people grow their own as well as some German States. In Italy drug possession for personal use is not illegal. This is France's "last ditch effort". If you people could see how the French smoke hash in public even in my small town you would think it was already legal.

Unregistered

To any politicians reading this, think of what all that money could do to the economy.