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Paris, France -- France should take a more pragmatic approach to fighting drug abuse and take into account the fact that alcohol and tobacco kill far more people than heroin or cocaine, an inter-ministerial committee has told the government. Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's office said on Thursday the committee's recommendations, yet to be approved by the cabinet, were based on a policy of "prevention, repression and treatment". Le Monde newspaper, which published extracts from the report on Thursday, said the committee urged the government to adopt a policy "which takes into account all types of addictive behaviour, regardless of the legal status of the product". The paper said around 60,000 deaths were caused each year by smoking while around 20,000 people died from diseases linked to alcohol. By comparison, 228 people died from heroin overdoses in 1997, it said. The paper said the interministerial committee, which has helped draw up anti-drugs programmes for successive governments since 1982, argued in favour of concentrating police action on tackling drug dealers rather than drug takers. Some 70,000 people were arrested in France in 1997 for using illegal drugs such as cannabis and heroin, while around 800 drug users were jailed for this crime. However, an official in Jospin's office said the government was not about to legalise so-called soft drugs such as cannabis. "There is certainly no question of putting two million people in prison, but neither is there any question of legalisation," the official said. An estimated two million people in France smoke cannabis. The committee chairperson, Nicole Maestracci, is due to meet the director of Jospin's office next week to discuss the government's anti-drug programme. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 and The Berne Convention on Literary and Artistic Works, Article 10, news clippings are made available without profit for research and educational purposes. |
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