“Cannabis, towards regulated legalization. The debate organized Thursday by the mayor of Bègles, Clément Rossignol-Puech, in his city, is likely to make people talk. After a column published on the site of the JDD on June 4, bringing together around fifty signatories, the elected ecologist of this town near Bordeaux, intends to initiate a movement in favor of local and supervised experimentation in the legalization of cannabis.
This initiative follows in particular a report by the Cese (Economic, Social and Environmental Council) of January 24, 2023, which underlines that “several countries have legalized cannabis for so-called “recreational” use (several States in the United States, Canada, Uruguay)” while within the European Union, “Malta is the first State to have taken the plunge, soon to be followed by Germany which, by 2024, must initiate a legalization process. “Despite the establishment of a prohibition system for more than 50 years, one of the most repressive in Europe, France is the European Union country with the highest proportion of drug users , with 45% of 15-64 year olds having already used cannabis at least once in their life, compared to 27% in the whole of the European Union”, also underlines the report, which does not hesitate to speak of a “failure of French public policies. Clément Rossignol-Puech answered questions from 20 minutes.
You have launched a call to “experiment with a local model for the legalization of cannabis”, at home in Bègles, and are organizing a conference for this on June 15 in your municipality. Why, and what form would this experiment take?
I launched this call, after the national report of the Cese which concluded with a framed legalization. This report itself followed a report from the National Assembly carried out in May 2021 by LR and Renaissance deputies, therefore not terrible leftists, who also concluded that legalization was supervised. I am therefore not isolated in this process. I reacted to this CESE report by calling on the government to apply its conclusions, and I applied for a local experiment.
Attention, it is not a question of proposing the sale of cannabis in self-service, it would be reserved for a certain number of chosen people. I don’t want Bègles to become a cannabis temple where tourists come to smoke joints, that’s not the idea at all. The project is still to be built, I don’t have the recipe, but it would obviously be very supervised, with doctors, psychologists, and sales and culture professionals because there is also an economic sector to be put in place. place. There is also a tradition of hemp cultivation in New Aquitaine, especially in Creuse. The idea, today, is to build concrete proposals with a notebook of actors, in which the inhabitants will also participate, like consumer associations, notebook that we will submit to the government by the end of the year. And to give credibility to this approach, we are organizing a symposium on Thursday with national experts.
So you’re not advocating cannabis, which remains a drug?
Not at all, I have a very measured speech. It’s a pragmatic mayor’s speech, and it’s the speech that almost all elected officials have who are attentive to the subject. We are in a real failure of cannabis consumption in France, with the most repressive policy in Europe since 80% of the means allocated by the State are devoted to repression, and in front of that we have the greatest number of consumers within the Union. And consumers who consume absolutely uncontrolled products, and whose THC increases enormously. My wish is to find the right device, which makes it possible to accompany consumers, to reduce consumption, in particular that of the youngest among whom cannabis can have consequences on cognitive functions. I don’t glorify cannabis, I don’t want to develop its consumption, it’s the opposite!
There are also traffic problems in some areas…
In all the cities of France, there is traffic. In Bègles, I have traffic. But when they are dismantled, they reappear a few months later, because the consumers are there. There are one million regular consumers in France.
Is it therefore utopian to believe that we will stop trafficking with a repressive policy?
Yes. The only way is to supervise and regulate, to reduce consumption among young people, and preserve the health of our fellow citizens. We need a strong public health policy, like tobacco and alcohol, which cause many deaths, but it would never occur to anyone to ban these two products which are drugs. In addition, the image that we have of cannabis in France, that is to say that of the young man from the suburbs who smokes his joint, is totally biased. It’s much more transversal, and the biggest consumers tend to be over 30 years old. I also know people who buy cannabis for their grandmother crippled with pain, and thanks to that she ends her life quietly.
So it’s not just a desire to relaunch this societal debate, do you want your proposal to succeed?
I want to meet all the conditions for this to succeed. When we have made progress on the actors’ notebook, I will go see the prefect, who is open to discussion. And even if, traditionally, among ecologists and on the left, we are more open and more advanced on this subject, it is a debate that runs through all political forces.
Bègles is a territory of societal innovation, as with Marriage for All, do you also want to continue this tradition with this approach?
I was in good school for a long time with Noël Mamère, who was my master in politics. The Béglais are proud of the first homosexual marriage celebrated here, and whose 20th anniversary we will celebrate next year. But more broadly, I believe that it is also the role of municipalities and mayors to advance social debates. And if we manage to convince the government, it would be interesting for several municipalities, with different typologies, to participate in this experiment.
Round table Thursday, June 15 open to all from 6 p.m. Red Cross training center, 22-25, rue des Terres-Neuves, Bègles.