ASUD is the first French drug user union established in 1993 during the AIDS epidemic among intravenous drug users and recognised by the authorities to represent drugs users' interests at many levels, including access to health, citizenship, and political reform. ASUD's main goals are to promote drug policy reform, the development and scale up of harm reduction and peer support.

ASUD es la primera unión de usuarios de drogas franceses creada en 1993 durante la epidemia de SIDA entre usuarios de drogas inyectables y reconocida por las autoridades gubernamentales para representar los intereses de los usuarios de drogas en diferentes niveles, incluido para favorecer el acceso a la salud y promover la ciudadanía y reformas políticas. El principal objetivo de ASUD es promover una reforma de las políticas de drogas, el desarrollo y el aumento proporcional de servicios de reducción de daños y el apoyo entre pares.

ASUD est le premier syndicat français des usagers de drogues, mis en place en 1993 lors de l'expansion de l’épidémie du sida chez les usagers de drogues injectables. L’organisation est reconnue par les autorités comme représentant les intérêts des usagers de drogues à plusieurs niveaux, y compris pour l'accès à la santé, la citoyenneté ainsi qu’en matière de réformes politiques. Les principaux objectifs d’ASUD sont de promouvoir la réforme des politiques en matière de drogues, le développement, l'intensification des services de réduction des risques ainsi que le soutien par les pairs.

Autosupport des usagers de drogues (ASUD)

In France, the question of racism has never been a central tenet in the discourse of cannabis law reform advocates. The lack of connection and engagement between these two fields is increasingly at odds with the wider racial tensions within French society, but it may explain why there has been such a delay in the 

 of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (CESE) to establish a temporary commission on cannabis must target and address the underlying chronic racism in the policing of cannabis in France.

Today, the issue of race features prominently and obsessively across debates in French society, whether it is about religion, security, education, colonial memory and of course immigration. The 2022 presidential campaign saw all the right-wing parties unite with the National Rally (RN) and Reconquête, political projects which incessantly stoking debates against the immigration of African and North African people into France. Marine Le Pen, the RN candidate, won 42% of the vote in the second round against incumbent President Emmanuel Macron, simultaneously gaining 89 parliamentary seats.

Drug trafficking has been a core message for RN, alongside a concern for growing political Islam. This discourse, deemed radical just a decade ago, is now part of the mainstream public debate, continuously disseminated on news channels despite several complaints for incitement of racial hatred.

Parallel to this political current, we can see that the winds of cannabis reform, felt across the world, have not blown past France. The United States, Latin America, Canada are increasingly experimenting with models of cannabis regulation. In Western Europe, there is progress within decriminalisation, a progressive step away from the prohibitionist drug war model. Yet in France, 

 which punishes simple possession with incarceration remains in place, a seemingly insurmountable roadblock for reform. And while the incarceration of cannabis consumers remains thankfully rare, police powers have seen an exponential growth, with escalating violence to fight the drug war, which particularly manifests itself as a targeting of minorities.

It is therefore tempting to examine both phenomena together and draw the conclusion that the lack of human rights and racial discrimination discourse by French drug policy advocates reformists is weakening the scope of possible drug policy reform.

'All traffickers are Black or Arab': The French racism in cannabis policing

An estimated thirteen thousand people use crack cocaine in the wider Paris region. There are a group of about 400 extremely marginalized users who can often be seen consuming in parks, causing a public nuisance. Despite this, in the 30 years since crack arrived in Paris, the government has only ever offered ad hoc (non)solutions to the problem, rather than having any kind of comprehensive long-term strategy. These users have merely been chased from one public place to another, without any real attempt being made to treat them. From Stalingrad square to the infamous “Crack Hill” in the Port de la Chapelle, and from there to the Eole Garden. In September 2021 the police closed down the garden and herded hundreds of crack users onto buses, shipped them to Porte de la Villette, and literally bricked up the tunnel which would have allowed them to walk back towards the wealthier parts of the city. This wall – an ugly and very physical manifestation of the authorities’ attempts to separate these crack users from the rest of society – has been nicknamed the Wall of Shame.

Drugreporter’s new documentary, co-produced with the International Network of People who Use Drugs and ASUD, the French drug user union gives a detailed analysis of the case of crack in Paris.

The wall of shame: Why crack consumption rooms are needed in Paris

LONDON [27 JUNE 2019] – Harm Reduction International and almost 120 human rights organisations from around the world – including Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists – published open letters today calling on the United Nations’ major drug control bodies to intervene and help stop Sri Lanka’s move to resume executions after 43 years.

President Maithripala Sirisena signed the execution warrants this week for four people convicted of drug-related offences.

The letters – sent to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) and UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) – underscore that the death penalty for drug offences violates international human rights law. The signatories state that “Remaining silent as Sri Lanka puts an end to a 43-year de facto moratorium on executions would strike a blow to the INCB’s and UNODC’s commitments to human rights compliance as a core principle of international drug policy.”

Giada Girelli, human rights analyst at Harm Reduction International, said: “There is simply no evidence that the death penalty is an effective deterrent against the drug trade. President Sirisena’s move is a gross violation of human rights – UN bodies must urge authorities in Sri Lanka to reverse this and work to consign the death penalty to the history books.”

Harm Reduction International’s latest research shows that global executions for drug offences fell by almost 90% from 2015-18, in large part because of judicial reforms in Iran. Of the 35 countries that retain the death penalty for drug offences, only four carried out executions in 2018 (China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Singapore).

Over 100 human rights groups urge UN to demand Sri Lanka halt executions of drug offenders

LONDON (2nd August 2016) – Civil society groups from across the globe, 

have called on UN drug control authorities to urge an immediate stop to the extrajudicial killings of suspected drug offenders in the Philippines. Since 10th May 2016, more than 700 people have been killed by police and vigilantes in the Philippines for being suspected of using or dealing drugs, as a direct result of recently-elected President Duterte’s campaign to eradicate crime within six months.

Until now, however, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) – the UN agencies responsible for global drug control – have failed to condemn the Philippines for these gross human rights violations committed in the name of drug control.

375 non-governmental organisations today sent an open letter to the UNODC Executive Director, Mr. Yury Fedotov, and the INCB President, Mr. Werner Sipp, asking them to take immediate action aimed at putting a stop to the extrajudicial killings.

“We are calling on the UN drug control bodies to publicly condemn these atrocities in the Philippines. This senseless killing cannot be justified as a drug control measure”, said Ann Fordham, Executive Director of the International Drug Policy Consortium. “Their silence is unacceptable, while people are being killed on the streets day after day”, she continued.

The open letter asks the UNODC and the INCB to call on President Duterte to:

Immediately end the incitements to kill people suspected of using or dealing drugs,

Act to fulfil international human rights obligations, such as the rights to life, health, due process and a fair trial, as set out in the human rights treaties ratified by the Philippines,

Promote evidence-based, voluntary treatment and harm reduction services for people who use drugs instead of compulsory rehabilitation in military camps, and

Not to reinstate the death penalty for drug offences.

Senior Research and Communications Officer

*******************************************

Key data on the Philippines drug policy crisis:

President Rodrigo Duterte was elected President on 30th May 2016 and began his presidential term on 30th June. He declared a war on drugs in which both police and civilians are encouraged to kill drug user/traffickers

704 people have been killed between the 10th of May 2016 to the 29th of July 2016 (ABS CBN News)

Communications Office Secretary Martin Andanar said 60,000 drug dependents have surrendered to authorities (Daily Mail).

Statements by international human rights groups:

Amnesty International, 10th May: Philippines: New President should break cycle of human rights violations, not compound them

Amnesty International, 30 June: Philippines: President Duterte must break the cycle of human rights violations

Human Rights Watch, 25th July: President Duterte’s Mixed Messages on Rights in the Philippines

Human Rights Watch, 12th July: Philippine Officials Shrug at Surge in Drug Killings

Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates & Citizen’s Council for Human Rights, 14th July: Stop the bloodshed, human rights defenders tell Duterte

Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates & Citizen’s Council for Human Rights, 14th July: Extra Judicial Killings: Normalizing Criminality Under the Guise of Peace and Order

Drug Policy Alliance, 25th July: Philippines President Makes Good on Pledge to Mass Murder People Who Use or Sell Drugs, Calls for "No Mercy" in State of the Nation Address

Asian Network of People Who Use Drugs & International Network of People Who Use Drugs, July: Philippines: An Entreaty to End the Killing, to End the Poverty and Exclusion

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.

Over 300 NGOs call on the United Nations to take immediate action on the hundreds of extrajudicial killings of suspected drug offenders in the Philippines

Civil society groups from all over the world have released a statement condemning governments for failing to acknowledge the devastating consequences of punitive and repressive drug policies as they prepare for a UN summit on the issue next month.

In April 2016, world leaders will gather in New York to decide on the future of global drug policy, at the first UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the topic in two decades. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for this meeting to be a “wide-ranging and open debate that considers all options.” But as the preparations continue this week in Vienna at an annual meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, it is becoming clear that the ‘once in a generation’ opportunity to rethink the failed ‘war on drugs’ is unlikely to deliver.

Civil society statement - The UNGASS outcome document: Diplomacy or denialism?

On Friday September 23, 2011, the French NGOs AIDES, ASUD and Fédération Addiction will be organizing a public meeting in Paris dedicated to promoting drug law reform.

Featured speakers include Stéphane Gatignon (mayor of the city of Sevran), Serge Supersac (former member of the French police forces), Ruth Dreifuss (former president of Switzerland) and Annick Lepetit (First Deputy of the City of Paris). The French version of the report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy with be released on this occasion.

French NGOs and authors call for drug law reforms

In early June, the Global Commission on Drug Policy released a report which demonstrates that the current drug control strategy relying on heavy penalties towards drug users has failed. The report triggered heavy debates all around the world on the alternatives proposed by the Global Commission - decriminalisation of possession of drugs for personal use, and regulation.

As a response to the report, several French policy makers, including Claude Gueant (French Ministry of Interior) and Nora Berra (state Secretary of Health), strongly opposed the possibility of cannabis decrminalisation. Despite available evidence showing otherwise, Mr. Gueant declared: "If we decriminalise, we make access easier, which would increase health problems. With regards to delinquency and the phenomenon of gangs, it has been observed everywhere that decriminalisation of cannabis leads gangs to start trafficking other substances".

A number of French organisations working on drug policy and harm reduction reacted strongly to these statements. This was the case, for instance of AIDES and ASUD (Association Francaise d'Usagers de Drogues). Their statement, addressed to Nora Berra, is available in French below.

Debates about cannabis decriminalisation oppose French government and NGOs

When integrated in harm reduction policy, supervised injection facilities (SIF) proved their efficiency in fighting AIDS and overdoses, and improving healthcare accessibility. Several European Countries successfully developed such facilities, though France has not stepped forward yet.

In order to draw a discussion on the SIFs issue in France, a group of associations opened one in Paris on the World Hepatitis Day on May 19th, 2009. The SIF was equipped with sterile drug consumption material, supervised by health professionals... though drug users were not allowed to use the premises due to French drug regulation. Many journalists, attracted by what they believed to be an illegal action (we did not mention in our press release that drug would not be allowed) came to visit the SIF. They were able to discuss with health professionals and expressed a general positive opinion toward the topic in their reports.

This media success allowed us to start a political lobbying action aimed to advocate the experiment of a SIF in Paris. Numerous appointments with political leaders led to two important decisions. Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot announced that such an experiment would be allowed depending on the notice of a national scientific expert committee (INSERM) and the city council of Paris sponsored a seminar on SIFs aimed for elected representatives of several French cities.

This action demonstrates that harm reduction is an attractive topic for media and politicians, particularly when activists can use sensationalism which media are often very fond of, drug being one of the most media attracting subjects of the last decades. Eventually, the success of this action must be credited to addiction professionals, drug users, HIV patients and hepatitis patients associations, who managed to gather their strengths and find complementarities, while respecting each one’s identity.

Asud, Anitea, Act Up – Paris, Gaïa Paris, Safe, Sos Hépatites Paris, salledeconsommation.fr

Autosupport des usagers de drogues (ASUD)

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