This text was revealed on Newsweed.fr on April 16. 

In a press launch revealed on 9 April, the Académie de Médecine (French Academy of Drugs) reiterated its prohibitionist stance on hashish, citing a choose vary of public well being issues and worldwide research to assist its place whereas consciously omitting the hurt brought on by prohibition.

The Académie has additionally taken a stance in opposition to experimentation with therapeutic hashish. Certainly one of its members just lately referred to as for ‘sterilising drug addicts’, and the Académie issued a fast assertion to distance itself from these remarks within the face of the outcry from healthcare professionals.

An express warning in opposition to legalisation

“Legalising the leisure use of hashish would trigger severe issues when it comes to public well being”, warned the Académie in a press launch that sounds extra like a political suggestion than an actual warning.

This isn’t the primary time the Académie has taken a place on the difficulty. Earlier statements in 2021 and 2023 laid the foundations for its opposition, however latest knowledge, in keeping with the Académie, have solely ‘confirmed the issues which have arisen in international locations which have legalised hashish’.

The doc, described as ‘notably incisive’ by Quentin Haroche in his article for Le Quotidien du Médecin, lists a sequence of worrying outcomes noticed in North and South American international locations which have opted to legalise leisure hashish, together with Canada, Uruguay and varied American states.

In response to the Académie, the affect of legalisation on public well being has been something however impartial. Citing Canadian knowledge, it factors to a 12-22% enhance in cannabis-related hospital admissions amongst adults in Ontario, and a threefold enhance in hospital admissions amongst kids aged 0-9 because of the unintentional ingestion of hashish merchandise.

By way of street security, the Académie studies a doubling within the variety of drivers testing optimistic for THC after being hospitalised following accidents in Canada after legalisation.

The results for psychological well being are much more alarming: “The proportion of latest instances of schizophrenia related to hashish use rose from 3.7% earlier than legalisation to 10.3% after legalisation”, with younger males aged between 19 and 24 recognized as essentially the most susceptible group. Amongst adolescents aged 12 to 19, the danger of growing psychotic problems elevated elevenfold.

Professional-regulation rhetoric referred to as into query

The Académie additionally takes direct purpose at Parliamentary Report No. 974, tabled on 17 February 2025, which advocates legalisation and means that it may present entry to substitution therapy for at-risk customers. The Académie categorically disputes this assertion: “Such therapy doesn’t but exist, both for hashish or cocaine”.

It additionally disputes the concept legalisation would assist to dismantle the unlawful hashish market or cut back total consumption. Quite the opposite, the Académie claims that authorized hashish has did not displace illicit gross sales, which stay extra aggressive when it comes to worth because of the absence of taxation, preferring to not cite Canadian outcomes the place between 75 and 95% of hashish purchases at the moment are made on the authorized market.

“In the USA, the place we have already got a reasonably lengthy observe document, the variety of shoppers has elevated twenty-fold, from 0.9m in 1992, earlier than legalisation, to 17.7m after legalisation in lots of states”, notes the press launch.

The concept that regulation would permit higher management of THC concentrations can also be attacked. In Uruguay, for instance, the THC content material of state-authorised hashish is alleged to have risen from 2% on the time of legalisation to fifteen% as we speak.

“How do you get individuals used to fifteen or 20% THC ranges to eat low-dose hashish?”, they ask.

A political ‘paradox’ and a name for prevention

One of the crucial virulent criticisms from an ideological viewpoint issues the concept legalisation may serve prevention efforts, notably amongst younger individuals.

The Académie sees this as a harmful contradiction: “It’s paradoxical to suggest legalisation for prevention and even to fund it”, arguing that authorized entry for adults would inevitably normalise consumption amongst adolescents, which isn’t occurring in international locations, states or provinces the place hashish has been legalised.

The Fee due to this fact recommends sustaining the ban on hashish in France, and urges the authorities to step up prevention and consciousness campaigns, notably amongst younger individuals. France already has the very best fee of hashish use in Europe, and the Académie believes that any rest of the legislation would solely exacerbate this pattern.

The instance of nations which have legalised the legislation tends to go in the other way, the place consumption by younger individuals has by no means been so low, as in British Columbia.

A divided medical group

Whereas the Académie has positioned itself because the guardian of public well being orthodoxy, not all members of the medical group agree with its place. The Collectif pour une nouvelle politique des drogues (CNPD), which brings collectively organisations similar to Médecins du Monde, Fédération Dependancy and SOS Addictions, issued a press launch the identical week difficult what it referred to as ‘France’s solely repressive method to the medication difficulty’.

Calling for a shift in direction of a health-centred social mannequin, the CNPD denounced the stigmatisation of drug customers and referred to as for ‘the speedy exploration of other fashions of drug regulation, which have already been examined in a number of international locations’. This name represents a broader pattern inside sure sectors of the medical and social providers, which observe that prohibition has failed to guard public well being and has as an alternative contributed to social exclusion and criminalisation.

Between scientific omerta and ideological rigidity?

Contacted by us (Newsweed.fr), we put the next inquiries to the Academy:

• The press launch assumes that supporters of legalising hashish imagine that it doesn’t pose a public well being drawback. Are you able to inform me what this presumption is predicated on?
• Does the Academy imagine that banning hashish protects younger individuals and grownup shoppers?
• Does the Académie suppose that banning hashish will curb its use?
• Does the Académie suppose that banning hashish will forestall trafficking and its repercussions on public well being (vitiated, uncontrolled merchandise, artificial cannabinoids, and so on.)?
• When the Académie says that ‘the black market has not disappeared’ after the assorted legalisations all over the world, does it favor 100% black market as in France or 25% as in Canada?

Regardless of a short textual content message change with its communications supervisor, we didn’t get a solution. Our publication is, after all, open to shed any crucial gentle on its press launch: does the Académie lastly imagine that French hashish prohibition is efficient in defending public well being and younger French individuals, Europe’s greatest hashish shoppers?