Lariboisière, a small haven for drug addicts – Release

eighteen-year-old. It took eighteen long years before the “consumption room safer”,, otherwise called “room shoot”, does not see the light of day in Paris. Installed finally in a building of the hospital Lariboisière with direct access from the rue Ambroise-Paré (X^e arrondissement), the structure will open its doors to drug users as early as Friday. Initially, the centre had to find rue Beaurepaire, a little further south, in the X^e arrondissement. But the opposition of the local residents was the result of a project dating back to… 1998. The people feared at the time the “attachment” of the drug dealers in their neighborhood.

The room, which is in the framework of risk-reduction programs (prevention, care, reintegration), should allow drug users to exchange syringes, take a shower, wash clothes but also to consult doctors. Las, the syndrome Nimby (“Not in my backyard”, “not in my backyard”), so named by the planners in the u.s. to sum up the negative reactions of local residents to any type of site urban, had struck in the capital.

also read: “A project where we don’t judge, where we do not exclude”

at the time, the town hall of the X^e had “agreed” with the Ddass (Direction départementale des affaires sanitaires et sociales) to open discreetly the center. An option that will prove hazardous, having regard to the mobilization of anti. Represented by an association, “Next quarter”, they have multiplied the appeal, and filed a complaint for “disturbing public order”. They then negotiated with the government before finally obtaining the principle of a relocation.

the association leading The project, “Charonne”, had been a bit awkward to persuade them of the merits of its interventions, the secretariat of State for Health is not supporting at the time only moderately, the principle of such an implementation. He had appointed a mediator, a professor of public health in charge of defusing the conflict. the “I don’t see how you can impose a shop in an environment that doesn’t want it”, said the professor Bernard Pissaro Release. A responsible for the Dass (read Release may 15, 1999) supported anonymously : “in Paris today, it is not possible to implement anything without consultation.”

Charter

Yesterday if diserts, the actors of this project prefer to remain silent today. Neither the association Gaïa (the carrier of a new project) or the deputy to the health of the mayor of Paris, Bernard Jomier, have wished to speak on the subject. The latter confided to JDD he “was missing a tool to try to bring it back to the social and healthcare system to those who are not able to go to the substitution or withdrawal”.

The reception centre of drug-Lariboisière will, all the same rules. In order to have access seven days a week, users will be required to participate in an interview and to sign a charter in which they undertake to comply with the regulations. No deals, or trading of prohibited products. Violent behaviour will not be tolerated. Inside, the action is set very formally. It is necessary to bring the entrance ticket, go to the injection room, to rest before returning to the outside. It appears to be excluded from back to the path in the opposite direction, to prick two times close together. Finally, no privacy in the “space only”. The health professionals will monitor the injections. They will also take the time to provide advice hygiene. Such support decreases the risk of overdose, abscess or infection, at the same time as the transmission of aids and hepatitis C. On-site, the users will benefit from the presence of a social worker. An insertion workshop is intended to “forge the link”.

heated Debate

For all that the spirits are not appeased. Banners of opponents to adorn the windows of the local residents. Anne Gotman, a sociologist specialized issues of hospitality at the CNRS, was explained to Release[26 June 1999], a “new entrant may not happen with impunity in a territory. There is a ritual, laid down as a test. And the rituals of today revolve around negotiating for the home. It is not necessary to take the residents to an epiphenomenon, or an accident of course. It makes a request for hospitality. They will have to receive the foreign [...]. Home, even if it is with friends, it receives abroad, but it the confines. It is the honor, but also to neutralize”.

The principle rooms of the injection contained in the act health, passed in December. She’s planning to experiment on a six-year term. Strasbourg is also expected to open a centre soon. At the global level, the people attending the 90 rooms already existing are two times less victims of death by overdose than those who cannot access.

In April, a panel discussion organized by the town hall of the X^e had been heated. More than 260 people were penned up to make the slap against the project. A councillor of the opposition had a lanc e a vibrant “how this neighborhood will not become a place of deal is open to the sky ?”. But a resident had defended the project. the “This is an issue of public health and also education, had she entrusted. in addicts, we can help them, accompany them.” The experiment conducted at Lariboisière will be able to tell if this lady was right.

Didier Arnaud