80 Les Républicains MPs against the legalization of cannabis

Tribune versus tribune. In response to the position taken by 3 Les Républicains mayors in favor of state control of the cannabis market, 80 members of parliament from the same party published an opinion piece on Sunday reiterating their support for French prohibition.

Soberly entitled «Legalization of cannabis: we're against it!», the 80 deputies and senators out of the 258 members of the group in the Assembly and Senate intend to reiterate that 'there is no such thing as a »soft drug«. Drugs are a poison, a scourge that we must fight».

«In recent weeks, some mayors have rekindled the debate by declaring themselves in favour of legalizing the consumption of cannabis. Cannabis. We, the Les Républicains deputies and senators, wish to reiterate that we are firmly opposed to this,» they go on to write. «The reasoning of these mayors deserves a different approach: just because the forces of law and order are having trouble putting an end to drug trafficking doesn't mean we should legalize the practice! Otherwise we'd also have to legalize arms trafficking, tax fraud, prostitution and stop punishing speeding drivers!»

Elected representatives are voicing the concerns of their constituencies, who are seeing «parents overwhelmed by seeing their child addicted, and families destroyed», «friendships disappear because of drug use, people lose their jobs and young people fall into delinquency to obtain cannabis», which is said to lead to «psychosis, schizophrenia, depression, school failure, dropping out of school, de-socialization».

They reiterate that «traffickers and importers must be severely punished by the courts, and our law enforcement agencies must be given the means to do so», and believe that the current status quo allows the black market to avoid «turning to the sale of even more dangerous and harmful substances!.

Finally, «even if cannabis remains theoretically forbidden to minors, we know that children who have seen their parents take drugs will also be consumers, as we've already seen with tobacco...«. warn the elected representatives, who remind «that almost 100% of heroin and cocaine users started with cannabis».