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The call for joint 18 2019 is approaching!

Published

7 years ago

June 11, 2019 - Updated on October 12, 2022

Resistance against prohibition is gaining momentum in cities across France: the «18 joint» call is approaching. In one week, rallies organized by pro-cannabis activists to debate and discuss the role of cannabis in French society and the reforms needed will be held in Lyon, Paris, and Nantes, among other cities.

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A festive and activist event

L’18 joint call It doesn't date back to 1940, but it's not exactly new either. The initiative stems from a manifesto published by the newspaper Libération in 1976 calling for the repeal of the 1970 Narcotics Act. That law is still in effect today, and consequently, the appeal of the 18th remains relevant as well.

Call from the 18th, as reported in *Libération*

Today, It's the IARC (Cannabis Information and Research Collective), which has taken up the cause and is organizing, among other things, the event in Lyon alongside numerous partners (Principes Actifs, GRECC, the Young Ecologists of Lyon, Europe Ecology–The Greens, Ananda & Cie, Lyon Sold’Jah, the Human Rights League, and AIDES).

That said, anyone can organize the “Appel du 18 joint” event in their own city by registering with the prefecture under the name “Collectif Ad Hoc de l’Appel du 18 joint.” All practical information is available at The CIRC page for the call on the 18th, including instructions.

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This 27th edition will be held at Parc de la Villette in Paris from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m., at the Parc des Berges in Lyon from 6 p.m. to midnight, and at the Miroir d’Eau in Nantes from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. It is a festive and activist event featuring speeches, information booths, a refreshment stand, and sound systems.

Advocating for Reform

In its press release, the IARC notes that the French are the heaviest cannabis users in Europe. 45% of the French population has already tried cannabis according to the EMCDDA and France ranks sixth in the world in terms of recreational cannabis use. Yet it remains one of the countries with the most repressive laws on the matter: on average, one arrest for a violation of the narcotics law (80% of which involve cannabis) occurs every three minutes; these violations result in 67,500 convictions per year, and recently a a fixed-amount administrative fine of €200 has been added to France's arsenal of repressive measures in the fight against drugs.

This new measure has been widely criticized by many stakeholders, such as Senator Esther Benbassa, the "Police Against Prohibition" collective and many other organizations who have referred the matter to the Constitutional Council, in vain. The IARC describes it as «a measure that has no effect on use or traffic, but is designed to the policy of focusing on numbers, based on a costly (€1.13 billion per year), ineffective, and discriminatory crackdown that targets young people perceived as non-white in working-class neighborhoods.’.

Despite the lack of progress, it seems that the issue of reform (decriminalization, legalization) is on more and more people’s lips: in Villeurbanne, in the Lyon metropolitan area, City Hall has launched a public consultation (72% in favor of legalization), members of Congress, and local elected officials also say they support reform, which the French have been slow to implement of whom 1 in 2 already support cannabis regulation.

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