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The Ripost bill aimed at strengthening penalties around the organization of rave parties mentions, among other things, the fight against drug use in nightlife spaces. But what does research actually say about drug repression? Is it effective? And is public health truly the issue at stake?
Back to the French legal foundation: the 1970 law
In August 1969, a young girl died from an overdose in Bandol, in the south of France. The media seized on this tragic but exceptional event and spread a wave of moral panic, describing drugs as a “cancer eating away at the youth.”
A few months later, during parliamentary hearings on drug use, Gaullist politician Alain Peyrefitte spoke about the “degradation of society’s morals,” placing delinquent communities, prostitution and homosexuality on the same level.
Despite this, by the end of 1970, a law was passed giving police and the justice system exceptional powers: custody periods of up to 96 hours and prison sentences for users. The Magistrates’ Union denounced a law threatening civil liberties. This legislation made France one of the most repressive countries in Europe regarding drug consumption.
The law also included a health component for users, who were considered patients and entitled to free and anonymous treatment. Today, however, the prohibitionist logic of the 1970 law has barely changed. Its rigid framework often prevents the implementation of meaningful public health policies. A law banning every classified substance constantly contradicts the possibility of building genuine health oriented approaches.
What social sciences tell us
From a sociological perspective, the class holding political and economic power also holds cultural power. According to British sociologist Howard S. Becker, the political world tends to demonize countercultures as ideological enemies because they represent a threat to the established order. The question is therefore not really drugs themselves, but rather who is consuming them.
Pointing fingers at countercultural users means stigmatizing part of the population while deliberately ignoring that drug use is not limited to these groups. Sociological studies show that drug use exists across all social classes. Cocaine use, for example, mainly concerns upper social classes, especially given its price, even if that price has recently dropped. Yet politicians and mainstream media rarely discuss this reality.
Research also shows that repression generally reinforces attachment to counterculture by strengthening feelings of cohesion and belonging. Repression can therefore increase the attractiveness of the movement by crystallizing tensions and the absence of dialogue.
Field experience: harm reduction associations
Observations from harm reduction associations show that the presence of drugs within rave culture does not mean the absence of rules or social regulation. Among participants, there are already harm reduction practices linked to drug use: hygiene rules, management of drug combinations and peer to peer transmission of knowledge from experienced participants to newcomers.
There is also a form of social acceptability threshold regarding behavior under psychoactive substances, especially behaviors interfering with the values of introspection, connection with others and music itself.
Prevention measures nevertheless remain essential, particularly for younger people seeking new experiences. Lack of knowledge about substances can lead to incidents, even if they are often minor. This can result in situations where people who have overconsumed drugs are handled by law enforcement officers who are not trained for these situations.
Beyond being counterproductive, this dynamic creates distance between authorities and organizers, especially within free parties. Any institutional intervention tends to be perceived as a threat.
The ban on psychoactive substance testing introduced in 2005 also became an obstacle to safer consumption. Before 2005, drug checking services allowed anonymous and non judgmental dialogue between prevention associations and users, while improving information regarding substances in circulation. Banning these services opened the door to riskier consumption involving cutting agents or dangerous molecules sold under different names.
Associations also report difficulties in having their work recognized by law enforcement. They are frequently associated with organizers and subjected to identity checks, vehicle searches and body searches. Combined with fragile public funding and volunteer based work, this continues to weaken prevention networks in France.
The growing gap between politics and research
The gap between political discourse and scientific research keeps widening. If the issue is truly about public health, why is alcohol legal even though the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction documents long term risks such as cancer, liver damage and neuron destruction, while substances like LSD, for example, are not documented as causing long term negative physical effects?
French and international experts increasingly agree that prohibition crystallizes the problem more than it solves it. Criminalizing drug use does not reduce consumption but instead increases public health risks. The more systematic the repression becomes, the more clandestine practices develop.
The debate should not be reduced to defenders of moral order on one side and libertarians on the other.
Harm reduction: the basics
Let’s be clear. There is no such thing as completely risk free drug use. Harm reduction does not make substances harmless. Its purpose is to reduce harm by giving users practical advice and concrete tools to lower the specific risks associated with their consumption.
There are two dimensions to harm reduction: the individual approach and the policies implemented within nightlife spaces such as clubs, warehouses, festivals and free parties.
Basic individual harm reduction practices include:
Spacing out doses,
Taking breaks and resting,
Avoiding mixing substances,
Eating and staying hydrated,
Not consuming alone,
Knowing the substance being taken, including its composition and effects,
Not driving under the influence of psychoactive substances.
Relevant measures within nightlife spaces include:
A trained harm reduction team operating both from a stand and throughout the venue,
A table with prevention material such as informational flyers, single use straws and saline solution,
A chill out room for people who may have consumed too much.
Photo : Wikimedia Commons
https://shs-cairn-info.docelec-u-paris2.idm.oclc.org/revue-psychotropes-2021-3-page-87?lang=fr
https://droit-cairn-info.docelec-u-paris2.idm.oclc.org/revue-deliberee-2018-1-page-10?lang=fr