Near Verdun, in a sparsely populated rural landscape, “Special Envoy” discovered countryside plagued by drugs, and particularly heroin. Extract from a report to be seen on October 12, 2023.
In eastern France, the Meuse has just over 185,000 inhabitants. Behind its landscapes with a past scarred by the First World War then deindustrialization, “Special Envoy” discovered countrysides blighted by heroin. A situation that Sofian Saboulard, the prosecutor appointed to Bar-le-Duc in 2020, did not expect. The repression of drug trafficking occupies an important place in the judicial activity of the department, with the presence of organized crime coming from Metz and Nancy.
If the region attracts drug traffickers so much, it is because they have understood “that in the Meuse, unfortunately, there were many consumers, he explains. It is a territory in which you have a youth which is a little abandoned. A rural department, with difficulties in accessing transport and employment…” And if these users turn to heroin, it’s simply “pbecause it is cheaper.
Heroin accessible across an entire territory
This most addictive drug is indeed accessible in the department at a sometimes ridiculous price, one of the lowest in France. Here you can find “brown sugar” (brown heroin) “from 6 euros per gram”, confirms Mathias (first name has been changed), when a better quality product will sell for up to 30, or even 40 euros per gram.
At 40, Mathias has always lived in the Meuse, and he has been dependent for twenty years. He consumed up to 3 grams per day, and was never able to get off this “poison with a little ribbon around it”. Today, he still takes this drug daily which begins with “do good in the moment, but in the end, poisons you”.
Excerpt from “Heroin, the poison of the countryside”, a report to see in “Special Envoy” on October 12, 2023.
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