Tuesday, October 11, 2016

Opening the first room shoot – The Figaro

VIDEO – The opponents of the project point to the gap leading to the legalization of drugs.

After years of controversy, a “room shoot” will finally open on Friday in Paris. First, even if an experiment in associative has already taken place in Montpellier in the 1990s. France became the tenth country in the world to experience this space reserved for drug addicts, a project appeared thirty years ago in Switzerland.

The all-new “consumption room safer” (SCMR) that is installed in the Xe arrondissement of the capital will be inaugurated on Tuesday by the minister of social Affairs and Health, and the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. An event. Symbol of a necessary evolution of the care of drug addicts to the few. Dangerous breach leading to the legalization of drugs to the other.

This place of 400m2, which is managed by the association Gaïa, specializing in the treatment of dependency on drugs, was initially expected to be installed in the boulevard de la Chapelle. Finally, next to the hospital Lariboisière, it will have an independent entrance on the street. Substances – heroin, crack, morphine sulfate, or alternative drug – will be made by the addicts themselves, but an injection equipment, clean and sterile will be provided. Located near the gare du Nord, one of the main places of sale and consumption of hard drugs in the capital, it is expected to accommodate approximately 200 people per day.

“The State says “you can’t use drugs, but we will help you do””

inside, consumers will have to register anonymously in a first piece of home before you go to a closed space reserved for the consumer – by injection or by inhalation and consists of a dozen box. “The users will have thirty minutes to do their preparation and use”, explains Jean-Pierre Couteron, president of Fédération Addiction, and defender of the project. A third rest area is also planned to avoid too much output early. “The people who will attend the consumption room will be able to meet informally with social workers, nurses or doctors, educators, explains Jean-Pierre Couteron. The goal is to build relationships of trust, provide them with aid. This tool is the missing link in our policy of reducing risk for people in hardship and difficulty, with a class of consumers who run around the neighborhood, and the system of medical care”.

A speech inaudible to the opponents of the project, policies, residents or associations, who fought hard, in the Chamber or the Council of State to prevent this experiment. “It is a total upheaval of the consensus policy conducted by all governments since more than twenty years in the fight against drug abuse. We are moving from a risk reduction policy to a policy of normalization and legitimation of the drug. The State says “you can’t you high but it will help you to do it”, said Philippe Goujon, deputy mayor LR of the Fifteenth. This staunch opponent of the rooms shoot denouncing “decriminalization” and “a first step towards legalisation”.

It is true that the installation of the rooms of the shoot requires an agreement with the law of 1970, which punishes the use and trafficking of narcotic drugs. In effect, the users of the consumption room paris will not be prosecuted for use and possession of illicit drugs. The relaxation of regulations in the vicinity of the place of experimentation to fear to Deborah Pawlik, elected LR of the borough, a “honey pot” for drug dealers. “This room will mechanically create a demand and lead to an increase in traffic, the number of drug addicts in the area and increase the risk of pollution and of regulations to account,” she says, then, that the city council of Paris, on the contrary, in before a “reduction of the disturbance of public order”.

The opening hours of the room – of 13: 30 to 20: 30 all week – are another concern. “What will happen to the addicts to closing hours, during the night? They are not going to stall their employment time on the room…,” quipped Deborah Pawlik who regrets a lack of consultation with the local residents so that “the annual operating cost of project of 1.2 million euros”, however, is “far from trivial”. Without waiting for a first assessment, a second room to shoot should see the light of day in a month in Strasbourg.

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