Adults' testimonies
Why don't I take drugs?
Jean, 20, business school student: "It's a question I don't really ask myself any more, because the answer is so ingrained in me. When I was in junior high and early high school, I always refused to smoke when I was offered even one drag, because I wanted to be a real sportsman who didn't take anything. At the time, I was doing several hours of rugby a week. Deep down, I was probably also afraid of my body's reaction to the product, because we're all unequal when it comes to drugs.
Then, in my final year of high school, I met up with one of my old good friends from college whom I hadn't seen since. He was so jovial, funny and dynamic, but had become completely apathetic, with no motivation or desire. He had repeated a year and changed high schools three times. Above all, he had taken up smoking joints on a daily basis. This began to make me aware of the dangers of this drug, which some people hypocritically and deceitfully dare to call a "soft drug".
It was at this point that I decided to train with drug-free childhood.
More recently, I spent a few days in an abstinence center for drug addicts. This experience reinforced my rejection of cannabis. I was particularly struck by the discussions I had with each of them. They told me about their "former lives".
I glimpsed humanity's lowest misery, what happens when we lie to young people and make them believe that cannabis is benign, when we cowardly let people die slowly by the wayside. I have great compassion for drug addicts, but no pity for cannabis.
I didn't need to see more to understand that pot is shit. (You don't need to be bilingual to understand this obvious fact.) I'm firmly convinced that young people, whoever they may be, have incredible resources that society should benefit from. I was extremely touched by the question we were asked in high school: "Who are you to deprive the world of the best you have to offer?
We can't say enough that cannabis is responsible for incredible losses to society. We can't repeat enough that pot is shit."
"It's a question I don't really ask myself any more, because the answer is so deeply rooted in me.
Jean, 20, business school student
It was one afternoon, someone brought
some cocaine and I tried it.
I had no idea it was going to lead me into a very dark place, as far as I was concerned, there was no danger.
We are under so much pressure to look good, to be intelligent, to work hard, to party until late (...) The only way I could stop taking cocaine was to accept my weaknesses. Drugs act as a real break – we think they give us energy but in fact they burn up our energy, take it away.
"Drug is a real brake, it takes us all our energy, we think that that gives us, but in fact that kidnaps us " asserts Lolita Sene, author of C. The black face of the white, Robert Laffont Edition, March 2015. She tells her first taking of cocaine, when she was 19 years old, and how she was allowed trap some drug on a daily basis, to hold out, while she worked in the special event management.
Lolita Sene is also the author of Me Juliette F: the blog of a cokée generation. Her book is the continuity. We find the character of Juliette there for whom the cocaine is omnipresent, a real stand of self-confidence. C. The black face of the white watch to what extent the cocaine became commonplace and how much the determination has to be to get out of this drug.
My sixteen year old daughter is in a good Parisian high school
and tells me that around her cannabis is very widespread
She does not understand why no one helps her schoolmates, who sink more and more into solitude and some of whom have already left school.
Is it common in Paris and throughout France? Have you heard similar testimonies?
Ritalin: testimony from a mum–doctor
What drives me to write to you is sadness from the heart. I am sad to see that our children are often introduced the world of drugs unknowingly.
I went to consult a famous child psychiatrist with my 12-year-old. The reason of this consultation was his lack of motivation and interest in school, manifested by a lack of attention. After having me tell that my son C. was fidgeting at home and quickly lacked attention in class, the child psychiatrist addressed C. directly. She said that when he had tests, all he had to do was take a pill of some "marvelous" medicine, which would "wind him up" in case of fatigue. And if he felt a lack of motivation, he would be motivated again and fit and he would not escape anymore into his dreams.
I expressed my disapproval, but it was useless, she was not addressing me anymore. "This medicine is miraculous" she said to him "but you can't talk about it with your friends and more importantly don't share it...". As soon as we left my son said : "Mum, was she offering me drugs?" I said "Yes". "Mum, I won't take them." "Of course, you won't".
My child was both reassured and disturbed by this attitude. He asked me if other children would accept them. I said they would and this is how numerous innocent children fall into the trap of drugs. "Well done, my son. You have your feet on the ground, despite what this woman doctor thought. Luckily you reacted quickly to what you were offered." As for me, my reaction was: If a child does not pay attention to his lessons, he can be stuck permanently high on Ritaline or a tranquillizer, which was my son's prescription. I allowed myself to tell you this because I am a doctor and I am well aware that we are helpless sometimes. I notice that too many of our children are quickly "healed" with tranquillizers, which makes only the doctor more tranquil. Let us remember the reason for the consultation: a lack of motivation and interest, made obvious by a lack of attention. The therapeutic route offered was methylphenidate hydrochloride. Even if this is a psychostimulant, it is also narcotic! That means that it belongs to the same pharmacological world as drugs! This is an amphetamine, as is ecstasy!!! These therapeutics decrease motivation, destroy the personality...
This is a doctor with a mother's heart who wants to alert you of this danger. Ritalin is too often part of the "treatment" of hyperactive children, who are precocious or distuptive. In the USA they are becoming more reticent about prescribing it. Do not let our children take tranquillizers or downers for any reason. If one is depressed, tired, are there not other solutions to win over these symptoms? Or are we the new slaves of middle age therapeutics that inhibits us, that prevents us from communicating and have us loose our dignity?
Grandparents have their word to say
We are lucky to have five grand children in good health. Two years ago Guillaume, aged seventeen, told us that his cousin, aged fifteen, took cannabis regularly. Instead of burying his head in the sand my husband, who has always been the family counselor, tackled the problem. He went to a training session with Enfance Sans Drogue and has educated the whole family.
At first individually with each of our grandchildren, children and children in law, then in a group we have reviewed in detail the information on drugs. To our great surprise, the most reticent were the parents. Our granddaughter has not only stopped taking drugs but she helps friends to turn themselves towards something else. I think that my testimony can help grandparents to start acting. The first step is the most painful, and then things follow by themselves.
Helping through a testimony: a mum
One of my children went through a period of frequent if not intense cannabis use, when he was aged between 14 and 17. Parents are the last to know. People who know your child is taking drugs – schoolmates, their parents, teachers - will not inform you and teenagers have a law of silence. A true friend came and told me as soon as she knew. Later I heard that some parents had known as well for many years that my son used drugs, but they did not judge it necessary to inform me. This is failing to assist a person in danger.
You also have to know that a child who is doing drugs becomes a liar.
Your candid little boy, always so truthful, is telling you lies and sometimes (often) he steals from you. Drugs make him lose the concept of good and bad and make him very ingenious at hiding things. Overwhelming him with questions or searching his room does not seem to be useful. On the other hand, if you say to him –if of course it is true- "I know that you are doing drugs", you may see him opening up, relieved that your eyes are finally open... If he keeps talking about cannabis as a "natural" product, "much less harmful than cigarettes or alcohol, which are not banned because they make the State richer", you can be sure he is consuming, and be ready to respond immediately to any argument with precise and documented information.
I was convinced that "smoking joints" always gave bloodshot eyes, I was looking for this sign, but I have never seen it. Other signs should have warned me: permanent thirst, cough, brief and regular outbursts of violence – which I explained by adolescence – in a child naturally so gentle.
A fall in school results can be a consequence of an intense consumption. A fall in results along with indifference and inability to envision the future is nonetheless a sign that you cannot miss. Some teenagers who use drugs frequently, regularly but not intensely, are under the impression that they "control" the situation because their school results do not change. It is important to talk to them about the nature of this illusionary feeling of control, about the dangers for their health and the risks of sliding into an intensive consumption – e.g. after a love lost, a mourning...
It is frustrating to hear told that the only thing to do when faced with a teenager who is doing drugs is to tell him "drugs kill; I love you, I don't want you to take drugs" according to the words of Marie-Christine d'Welles. Of course, the most efficient method remains prevention. But when a child has "fallen", he has to be told and retold "drugs kill; I love you, I don't want you to take drugs", in every possible tone and way, as many times as possible, and with as many details and arguments as possible. And it works. Sometimes a change of environment that cuts the child off from his circle of consumers, in which he has more or less locked himself up, can save the situation.
Fathers are often left helpless when facing a problem, and mothers, whether separated or not, often feel that they face the problem alone... They must take care not to add to the anxiety or stress of the situation a resentment regarding the father of their child!
A 22 year-old boy
I have consumed cannabis in very high doses for 4 years, and from time to time I mixed it with alcohol. I got to a point when I wouldn't work anymore, I would stay in my room, I wouldn't see anybody anymore. Then someone in my family gave me a book to read C'est quoi la drogue? by Marie-Christine d'Welles. It was like a big slap in my face, I agreed with many things and it was then I decided to stop taking drugs. I remember the last page [editor's note: the psychotropic drugs table]
Virginie Despentes, author, about cocaine
It’s true that the first few times it’s funny. Baise-moi wouldn’t have been finished without coke, because we would have been more conscious of all that was happening around us, we’d have had more normal sensibilities … It helps you keep going all night. I wrote my novel Les Jolies Choses in 3-4 days coked up, it unblocks things. You quickly get high for a short amount of time, then you have to take it again straight away and after a while the brain gets confused. […]
In the last two years, it’s really spread everywhere, in squats as well as in the [internationally renown academic institutes] Polytechique and Ecole Nationale d’Administration, it’s as if in people’s minds it’s on the same level as cannabis or alcohol. If I want to buy some, I can buy it any time, in many ways. It’s easier to find than grass.[...] It’s the same in the provinces, before people didn’t take it much in Nancy or Lyon or Rennes. Now when I go there, I see that people are using it a lot: teachers, social workers, social welfare employees, lawyers. They tell me that in Lyon, it’s even found in public high schools […].
In some quarters I’m sure that eight out of ten people are using coke and are affected by coke. But they don’t say it, because this is France. We are Catholics, we do things, but on the sly … A guy like X … a trendy writer, isn’t really going to say how much he spends on coke. If people knew the amount certain privileged people spend on coke and compared it to what they earn, they’d see that they’re being fucked over. X … drops ten times the minimum wage on coke each month. But he’s not going to say: I spend 10,000 euros a month on coke and fuck you … no one could hear that. What’s more, in these circles coke is completely idealized. But me, I’ve never seen anyone made brilliant by it long term. Cocaine just turns people into idiots: arrogant, talkative, very confident, aggressive, paranoid, certainly not great. […]
It’s a drug with includes you in society, a drug for white people, politically very marked. Basically, it’s the drug of advertising, and people in advertising are pricks. You don’t have to go far to find it, Coke, for keeping control over people is great. Once you are into cocaine, the only thing that counts is to buy it, so you work for it no matter what the conditions. You think less, work more, you need more money. Less sleep, a lot less self-reflection and no margin for rebelling, you can’t rebel when you have to take coke the next day. In addition, coke clouds your judgement, so if the boss talks to you, you’ll do what he says, because whatever else tomorrow you have to have coke.
People that I knew and liked are not the same, they have changed. I even see 16 year olds who are at it, sons of the middleclass… The most desperate cases that I’ve seen, are the girls who have more problems to deal with than the guys. There must be a thing with estrogen and coke, they don’t go together. The women are also more vunerable because it makes them thinner. They say to themselves, if I give up I’ll gain weight, obviously the first trap. Personally, I don’t think that I’ve returned to myself, I’m not the same emotionally. Something in me has changed, a chemical balance has been altered: breaking into tears, anxiety… I want to see a discourse that will happen ten years from now when we begin to pay for the damage. And not just for the heart attacks in people aged 55. We don’t talk about the depression that will be created. This drug is total suicide [...].”
