Here’s their article and analysis of the conversation
Appearing on DébatDoc, a current affairs program on France’s parliamentary TV channel LCP, Nicolas Prisse — head of MILDECA, the French government agency responsible for drug and addiction policy — was tasked with defending France’s approach to cannabis. Facing him were two prominent experts in the field: law professor Yann Bisiou and Marie Jauffret-Roustide, a sociologist and researcher at Inserm, France’s national institute for health and medical research. For nearly half an hour, the familiar arguments used to defend French cannabis prohibition were put up against the available evidence. At times, the exercise proved particularly uncomfortable for Prisse.
Ali Baddou, the show’s host, begins by outlining the «French paradox»: France has some of the most repressive laws in Europe, yet it remains one of the countries where cannabis is widely used.
To defend the government’s record, Nicolas Prisse first focuses on teenagers. And on this point, the figure seems striking: among 16-year-olds, cannabis use has dropped from 31% in 2015 to 8.4% in 2024. France is now among the European countries where young people of this age use the least. Data from the OFDT confirms this.
But Yann Bisiou and Marie Jauffret-Roustide immediately shift the focus. Among young adults, the situation is quite different. European data available for France showed that 19.2% of 15- to 34-year-olds had used the substance within the past year, compared with approximately 15% in the European Union. Above all, they point out, the decline in teenage use is being observed worldwide, in Canada as well as in Europe.
When Regulation Neither Raises Prices Nor Reduces Supply
Yann Bisiou summarizes the problem using three classic indicators of an illegal market: prevalence, price, and potency of the products. Despite decades of law enforcement efforts, cannabis remains widely available in France.
Prohibitionist policy, on the other hand, creates what legal scholars call a «pariah user»: a consumer forced to operate outside the law, even though this illegality does not eliminate either the product or its market.
Marie Jauffret-Roustide contrasts this approach with that of regulation. She cites Quebec in particular, where the legal distribution is entrusted to a public monopoly rather than a private industry seeking to maximize its sales. The case of Quebec is all the more interesting given that public health data do not show the predicted surge in consumption among the youngest consumers : among 15- to 20-year-olds, reported use is actually lower today than it was before legalization.
On global legalization, Prisse is redefining the trend
This is probably the weakest point in MILDECA’s defense. Nicolas Prisse asserts that the international movement is not particularly moving toward legalization and points to countries that, in his view, have backtracked. He specifically cites Thailand and Germany, which «did not see its reform through to the end.».
The reality is more complicated.