DFor several days, Emmanuel Macron’s remarks have been aimed at consumers “inner city bourgeoisie” accused of funding drug trafficking has sparked a lot of backlash. This rhetorical mobilization is worrying: rather than clarifying the problem, it reinforces long-standing prejudices against drug users and brings the fight against drug trafficking into a political and operational stalemate. To reduce this complex phenomenon to a mechanism of individual guilt is to deny the reality of social determinants and public responsibility.
Yes, without customers, there is no market. It is clear. However, if we consider the issue of drug trafficking as just a moral and individual problem – guilt, guilt, personal responsibility – it is the same as hiding something important. Consumption cannot be separated from the social, economic and political context that makes it possible or bearable. Pointing the finger at users is to divert attention from the root of the problem about which we collectively refuse to take action.
Our society is experiencing a loss of direction, worry about the future, increasing isolation and the breakdown of social bonds. Ecological vertigo, weakening of the economy and permanent ban on performance affect all social categories. What we previously asked of society, we now ask of individuals. It is in this vacuum that addictive behavior becomes a fragile palliative that allows us to remain standing in the face of a reality that is already too heavy. The question is not just who consumes, but what, within our social organization, makes such use attractive, necessary or tolerable.
History has taught us: “war on drugs”declared more than fifty years ago (in the United States) by Richard Nixon, was a global failure. Billions of dollars are spent, lives are destroyed, without ever achieving a permanent reduction in traffic or product availability. The observation is clear: repression alone does not change the market or the logic of use. On the other hand, it disempowers the most vulnerable groups, exacerbating risks and alienating them from support systems.
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