Police raid on Saint-Jacques hospital in Nantes: symptom of French prohibition

Edito. On Christmas Eve, 24 police officers and 2 dogs were deployed to «secure the premises and search for narcotics» at Saint Jacques Hospital in Rezé, near Nantes. The result of this massive raid: 7 grams (grams!) of resin discovered in a patient’s room.

Since the operation was a resounding success, the Loire-Atlantique Departmental Public Safety Directorate decided to post a glowing tweet about it, complete with emojis and hashtags.

https://twitter.com/PoliceNat44/status/944590255306563586

To provide some context for this police operation, it’s worth noting that Saint-Jacques Hospital has been complaining for some time of drug trafficking allegedly taking place within its walls. Dealers are said to come and deliver drugs directly to patients at the hospital, causing hospital staff to worry for their own safety and that of the patients.

What better solution, then, than to mobilize 24 people and 2 dogs and search sick people? There’s no doubt that the drug dealers got scared and that the problem was solved by the next day.

A reflection of the failure of the situation in France

Beyond our obvious irony, this police raid is, sadly, merely a reflection of the failure of French prohibition: the stigmatization of users, the ban on medical cannabis, a quota-driven policy that forces our police officers to meet their year-end statistics by choosing easy targets, a waste of public money and time, and zero effectiveness. And above all, no proposals that would move us away from the status quo. Orders are orders, so let’s get to it!

This raises several questions for us:

• How can we spend an afternoon and deploy a K-9 unit to go after criminals when our law enforcement agencies regularly complain about a lack of time and resources?
• How can anyone think that cracking down on a sick person will solve a traffic problem?
• How can anyone think that this improves relations between law enforcement and citizens?
• And more broadly, what is the actual outcome of this operation, and at what cost?

From our perspective, what we see above all is a patient who may have been using cannabis for pain relief being arrested, a hospital that is supposed to be a place of peace and tranquility, overrun, a tweet that everyone made fun of, and a French police force that seems to have inherited more of Agent 212’s talents than those of Hercule Poirot.

To find out more :

• NORML France has also reacted at this event
• Release in took stock of the situation social media-focused
• Mathieu Kassovitz spoke out with his characteristic tact