French Justice Minister Marylise Lebranchu called on politicians to begin debating the merits of marijuana decriminalization after a newly released study reported that approximately half of all teens have tried the drug.
“I think that starting the debate would not be a bad thing because it has never been started properly,” Lebranchu told Inter radio, adding that the issue “will have to be taken to a conclusion one day.” The Justice Minister made her comments following the release of an annual report by the national Drugs and Drug Addiction Observatory that found almost 60 percent of boys and 43 percent of girls aged 18 have already tried pot. Among adults, the study reported that 16 percent of the population had experimented with the drug.
A previous report released in November by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) estimated that just over 20 percent of French adults and some 40 percent of teens had tried the drug, despite the fact that the country maintains some of the strictest anti-drug laws in Europe. Under French law, drug use is punishable by up to one year in jail and drug possession – including marijuana – is punishable by up to ten years in jail (though first-time pot offenders may be let off with only a warning).
Currently, only a handful of European Union nations criminally prosecute marijuana offenders. Last year, Belgium, Luxembourg and Portugal all enacted policies decriminalizing pot, while Great Britain’s government announced that it would federally reclassify marijuana so that its possession was no longer an arrestable offense.
For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of The NORML Foundation at (202) 483-8751.