France rejects injection room proposal - Eurad

The office of the Prime minster issued a statement on the 12th of August 2010 saying that he would not support injection rooms, saying that they were “neither useful or desirable".

− The Prime Minister’s priority is to reduce drug consumption, not to aid or organize it, said Fillon in the statement as reported by Digital Journal.

Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot has previously been supportive of the idea of injection rooms in the larger French cities but her proposal is now shelved. Bachelot argued that injection rooms (commonly referred to in France as "salles de shoot" or "shooting rooms") would reduce overdoses and infectious disease in the drug community. 

Roselyne Bachelot first suggested injection rooms July 19th 2010. Her announcement followed a report by the INSERM, the national health and medical research institute in France, which claimed that injection rooms had a proven effect in terms of reducing drug-related crime, overdoses, infection and death.

A nation devided

The French population, including the French government, are devided on this issue. Prime Minister Fillon has been critizised not only by political opponents, but also by his political allies such as State Secretary for Families Nadine Morano. She argued that the debate needed to be opened up in order to consider all options designed to fight drug addiction. 

− When drug addicts are able to take their drugs under supervision and we have a chance to get them off drugs, I think we will have won a battle, Moreno said to radio station RTL in an interview.

Another ally, Mayor of Marseille Jean-Claude Gaudin, said that he and Roselyne Bachelot “are on the same wavelength.” He had even announced that he would install injection rooms in Marseille. Gaudin has since changed his mind on this issue.

Not to aid addiction

The Prime Minister found support in UMP General Secretary Xavier Bertrand, who said that drug dependence needs to be the focus of treatment, and that the objective was not to aid addition.

− Injection rooms send a very bad signal to society, said Bertrand to Euronews.

Fourteen other MPs who are members of the UMP (The Union for a Popular Movement) party have declared their opposition to the idea, saying injection rooms "will not resolve any problems".

The head of France’s Senate Gérard Larcher says that the issue should be properly debated and has called for a parliamentary commission to investigate.

− This is a debate that needs to take place. It is parliament that should that should take on that role.  I am completely loyal to the parliamentary majority, but the role of parliament is to be free of a number of government and ministerial constraints, and I believe there is a real debate to be had, Larcher said in a radio interview with Europe 1 according to France 24.

France has one of the higher incidences of heroin use in Europe (at 0.47% of the population), although it is far behind the European leader, Scotland (1.54% - the UK average is 0.81%), according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

What are injection rooms?

Injection romms currently exist in eight countries: Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, Norway, Australia and Canada.They are officially recognized and publicly-funded rooms designed to for hygienic use of pre-obtained street drugs.

The drug addict can inject their own drugs with clean needles in a safe environment. The aim is to reach out to high-risk drug users, particularly those who inject in public, by providing a sterile environment and trained staff such as nurses and social workers.

The INSERM report compiled a list of the benefits and negative effects of the introduction of injection rooms in other countries.Benefits were said to include the reduction in antisocial or illegal behavior by children or adolescents in areas around the rooms, no increase in drug use, less infection and the access to help the drug users overcome their addiction.

The reported negative effects were a slight rise in small scale dealing in areas concerned, no proven reduction in HIV and local opposition to having such rooms in their neighbourhood.

There was a Norwegian evaluation of one injection room in Oslo in 2008. It stated that given that the trial scheme has been limited, there is no basis on which to draw a conclusion as towhether the scheme has contributed to reducing infection, overdoses and overdose fatalities. See journal article here.