This is a raging and divisive debate for many years in France: should cannabis be legalized? A question to which a large number of countries in the world have responded rather favorably. Portugal, Germany, Israel, Canada, among others, have either legalized or decriminalised, in a controlled manner, the consumption of Hashish and Marijuana. France, which has the largest number of cannabis smokers in Europe, remains, for its part, hermetic to any form of relaxation and continues to choose repression to stem its trafficking and its consumption. A ban that does not really have a major impact on users, who are generally exposed to these psychotropic drugs at a very young age.
The documentary Youth in smokewent to meet addictologists and four young adults who tell openly, and in a very lucid way, why from adolescence they have ” pulled on their first joint“, how the addiction has crept into their lives, but also the hypocrisy, according to some, in the face of what has become a real public health problem. “One student in ten has already smoked in fourth”, reveals the film by Andrea Rowlins-Gaston and Christophe Astruc. Ten times more powerful and harmful than thirty years ago, cannabis can cause irreversible damage to developing brains during puberty. Risks, to which no real solution, other than the “fear of the police”, is envisaged for this young people who expose themselves to a danger that is sometimes understated.
Johanna, who testifies in the documentary, began using cannabis when she was 15. “When you’re in high school, it’s cool to smoke joints. It’s pretty well seen.” Declares the young woman now a student. “After passing my Bac ES, I arrived in Montpellier, in the Faculty of Letters. (…) I had my apartment, I could smoke at home (…) I could smoke as much as I want, there was no one to bother me. (…) In Montpellier, it’s super easy to smoke cannabis. It’s disconcerting. We are offered some, there are so many, and what’s more, it’s not expensive at all. (…) It’s a city where you can smoke in front of anyone. Nobody cares, nobody knows it, and nobody says anything.”
Johanna, who is 22 today has become depressed because of cannabis, which does not prevent her from continuing to consume. It points, however, the inconsistencies of a system which, in a way, tends to encourage smoking by allowing businesses to sell all kinds of accessories for taking drugs. “We are clearly on something hypocritical, is surprised the young lady, because in France, you can buy slim leaves, Grinders, (small grinder for cannabis), bongs (water pipe for smoking drugs), in newspaper stores, in tobacconists. It’s legal to buy cannabis to roll, it’s legal to buy tobacco to smoke cannabis, but it’s not legal to buy cannabis. It’s ridiculous !”
A form of misunderstanding mixed with a failure of prevention and a certain lightness in the face of this scourge, which worries Hélène Donnadieu-Rigole, head of the addiction service at the Montpellier University Hospital. “When the young consumer goes to smoke cannabis, the cannabis will attach itself to the neurons in the brain, says the doctor, and in the short term will cause problems of memorization, concentration. (…) There are also long-term consequences on the consumption of cannabis. Few people know it but the brain is in formation until the age of 25/27 and cannabis will have an action on this brain in formation and therefore modify it. (…) A young person who started smoking very early, that is to say before the age of 15 (…) will have an alteration in his intelligence quotient in a definitive way even if he stops smoking.
This documentary, carried essentially by young people for young people, resonates like a manifesto and deciphers the dangers of excessive consumption and the havoc it can wreak on the lives of young people.
The documentary “Youth in Smoke” realized by Andrea Rowlins-Gaston and Christopher Astruc, airs Wednesday, June 8 on France 2 at 10:45 p.m. in the “Infrarouge” collection.