About twenty groups and associations of local residents ulcerated by the nuisance of crack trafficking in Paris are appealing directly to Emmanuel Macron to demand the abandonment of projects for drug consumption rooms, which the Paris town hall is seeking to establish with the assent of Matignon.
Read also Health disaster and political bankruptcy: the impasse of crack
"
Who says drug use inevitably says trafficking with its attendant nuisance
", alarm the signatories of this letter, published Tuesday, November 2 on social networks.
They demand from the President of the Republic "
a strong and rapid commitment to a national policy which does not content itself with accompanying addiction in a secure manner
".
Other avenues to explore
All are opposed to the multiplication in Paris and in the
inner suburbs
of "
Haltes Soin Addiction
" (HSA) for crack users, places "
planned in residential areas, schools and shops
" and which "
will in fact be supervised consumption rooms
, ”they say.
"
Compulsive consumption of this highly addictive drug will lead users to continuously obtain a new dose, near the HSAs where the dealers will be waiting for them
", these inhabitants fear.
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They consider that "
other avenues (...) deserve to be explored
", in particular "
that of therapeutic communities
" which are "
far from urban concentrations
" and "
allow addicts to break with the circles of consumption and trafficking, while ensuring their social and professional reintegration
”. The new Social Security financing law should soon make it possible to create new consumption rooms at lower risk, in addition to the two created in Paris and Strasbourg on an experimental basis in 2016. New places, renamed HSA, for which the town hall of Paris expressed interest this summer.
At the beginning of September, Prime Minister Jean Castex decided in favor of an extension of these devices, based on the "
positive
"
assessment
of existing structures, detailed by Inserm and claimed by the Ministry of Health, despite the opposition from the Interior Ministry.
To read also Paris calls on the State to dismantle "the hill of crack"
Long focused on the “
Crack Hill
”, located on the edge of the ring road in the north of Paris, the trafficking of this smokable derivative of cocaine has become much more visible in the capital since the final evacuation of this vacant lot at the end of 2019. The authorities push consumers from one place to another, without being able to stop the traffic.
Since yet another evacuation at the end of September, crack addicts have been wandering between Porte de la Villette in the 19th arrondissement and the municipalities of Pantin and Aubervilliers, north-east of Paris.
