ABSTRACT: In January 1987 Public Prosecutor Georges Apap delivered this speech in favour of the legalization of drugs, on the occasion of the inauguration of the judicial year of the tribunal of Valence (France).

(Radical News n. 51 of the 11th of March 1988)

Mister President, in a few moments I will ask you to declare the judicial year 1987 open. Not for this, however, will we have any certainty as to how it will be. Rather than devoting myself to the long task of examining each matter, I have preferred to choose a subject, keep it as an example, and extract some general remarks from it. My choice fell on the problem of toxicomania. We all know to what degree this subject is a matter of concern for the public opinion. This preoccupation is only legitimate. But my first remark is one of surprise before the emphasis that the matter assumes in the public apprehension. In fact, it is in disquieting terms that we recurrently hear people speaking about the plague of drugs. Of course, it cannot be denied that the problem is serious and the danger real. But are we certain that we have not gone too far?

For example, just recently a high-ranking person compare the damages of toxicomania with those of a war.

Each year over 120 deaths for drug overdose are recorded in France. Let's see the figures concerning the wars instead:

- the '14-'18 war caused 8 million deaths, among which 1,600,000 young French soldiers;

- the '39-'45 war caused 40 million deaths, if we include the victims of the Nazi death camps;

- at present, two rather immature countries engaged in a stupid conflict can already count one million deaths.

These figures, compared to the 120 toxicomaniacs, give an idea of the exaggeration with which the public opinion is being alarmed on a specific, even if tragical matter, but concerning which a psychological "intoxication" seems to be in progress.

The true danger for the social body, the true insecurity that threatens people comes from elsewhere, from events and behaviours that are close but that no one bothers to denounce. To mention the 120 deaths each year, I would like to say that they must be compared with the 12,000 victims of road accidents, and, even better, with the 80,000 deaths due to alcohol abuse. Road accidents are barely mentioned, and alcohol abuse is never mentioned, as if the real plagues manifested themselves the less, the more they are dangerous. But I want this to be extremely clear, it is here that my first idea connects to the second one: I do not wish to add intolerance to exaggeration. I am not conducting crusades against alcohol, and I have no intention of defending the alcohol producers. I am simply underlining the tolerance of which alcohol benefits from, the almost indifference, the complacency even: if you talk about a person who got drunk regularly until yesterday, you will cause nothing but amused thoughts and smiles. I

f, on the contrary, in front of the same people and talking about the same person, you say that he was caught while consuming a cannabis or coca or poppy derivative, then you will immediately see the smiles fade away and the faces become hard. This is, one might say, because the use of narcotics is dangerous. I agree completely. But I ask you to replace the word "drugs" with the word "alcohol" when talking about toxicomania and tell me if the discussion has lost its coherence.

The only difference between the two phenomena is the one relative to the prohibition laid down by the law. And therefore my second idea is that of inviting you to think about the sense and the significance of this prohibition.

Prohibition dates back to the law of 18 July 1845 (in France, editor's note). Since then it has not ceased to be included in all our repressive texts, till the Public Health Code.

The first breach in the prohibitionist process appeared not in the form of a law but in a circular document issued in May 1978, published by the Chancery, which invited the prosecutors to no longer prosecute hashish and marijuana consumers, but to send them to doctors or specialized institutions. It must be remarked upon that this was only a circular document, in contrast, among other things - as is often the case - with the law, but that had the new merit of suggesting an effective depenalization of the use of drugs. Its dispositions are currently questioned, in a polemic context which would be interesting to analyse. It must be frankly admitted that after one and a half centuries of repression, of bans, of more and more severe laws, the phenomenon is not ceasing to spread nor is the number of toxicomaniacs to increase.

Without actually suggesting that severity encourages the spread of the plague, we can however state that the unquestionable truth is that this severity is of no help to stop it, and that prohibition is useless. Or rather, it has the perverse aspects all prohibitions have; for example, it favours the drug traffic, causes an increase of the prices because of the risks the trafficker must run, causes a crime specifically aimed at getting the money for the purchase of expensive drugs, fosters the alteration of the product, making it even more dangerous.

We could also mention the prohibition on the free sale of needles, a prohibition which is the origin of the spread of AIDS:

To better illustrate my opinion, I would like to recall the epoch in which alcohol prohibition was enforced in the United States of America, from 1919 to 1933: smuggling, traffic, corruption, clandestine trade, adulterated beverages, appearance of the mafia, bloody revenges between gangs. The remedy was worse than the evil, and the abolition of prohibition in 1933, if it did not actually make alcohol abuse disappear, at least took this vice away from a deplorable milieu, which made it even more terrible. In conclusion, the effects of prohibition are purely negative, both for alcohol and for drugs. But such evidences are difficult to proclaim, when they violently clash against the prevailing opinion. They are considered provocative, whereas the voice that utters them is only filled with anguish, the anguish of a cripple who sees the blind that leads him walk toward a road with no exit.

One day everybody will have to admit that the tide of toxicomania, like that of alcohol abuse, is rising inevitably, with or without prohibition, to a final level in which it will finally stabilize itself, and at that stage we will have to get accustomed to it. After tolerance for alcohol, it will be the time of tolerance toward drugs.

On this subject, allow me to quote Jean Cocteau: "Because this mystery surpasses us, we pretend (?) to be the organizers of it", and, applying it to our subject, say: "Because this phenomenon baffles us, why not organize it?". Allow me to stop here, because I have no intention of sketching a scenery of what a society would be like if there were no prohibition on drugs; where the trafficker would turn into an honest importer and the small-scale dealer would become the manager of clubs without crime; where the anti-fraud service would deal exclusively with the product's quality; where the physicians would handle only excessive consumers; and where the Anti-Drug Brigade would necessarily have to convert itself into something different.

I said before that it was my wish to extract general conclusions from this argument. I hope that the example I chose has highlighted the limits to be assigned to repression. I am well aware that it is an unexpected speech, on the part of a prosecutor. But it was my intention, for a moment, to express myself as a citizen, a citizen who is doubtless accustomed to seeing things from a privileged point of view, but who wishes to give society, for which he feels sympathy and solidarity, the contribution of a year-long meditation, on the effectiveness of a sanction in realms where the evolution of habits becomes inevitable. Through this, I would like us to to cease to expect from repression the remedy to educational shortcomings, to difficulties in social integration, over which justice has no capacity to intervene.

Because I am tired, truly tired, of hearing people shout in my ears: "What is justice doing? What are you waiting for to put them in prison?"