Is it necessary to cross-check both pieces of information? Far from being “synonymous with rebellion,” cannabis consumption—stabilized at a high level while cocaine use is on the rise—rather signifies, according to the director of the French Monitoring Center for Drugs and Addiction (OFDT), a form of over-adjustment to current society. Smoking cannabis aims at “adhering to the norm of the social group to which the individual belongs,” notes the OFDT’s 2010 report published on February 4. “63% of adolescents” believe it is necessary to “fit in” to find their place in society, and 81% of them feel that “people who are different from others are regularly discriminated against,” highlights an Ipsos survey conducted from September 8 to 21, 2009, by the Wyeth Foundation with young people aged 15 to 18. “The perception of one’s individual difference compared to the group they belong to appears as a determining factor of the morale and well-being of adolescents,” explain the authors of this survey.
The figures speak for themselves. Perhaps in place of the interested parties, frozen in their silence, trapped in their symptoms. That of an ever-radical division between norm and desire: nothing fundamentally new since Sigmund Freud’s revelation of the heavy demands of civilization that weigh on human destiny.
Has nothing changed, then? Not quite: to hear the adolescents from a few years ago, the use of psychoactive substances, particularly cannabis, sought to create a protective barrier, to establish a distance perceived as salvific, aiming to keep at bay a reality as detested as it is distressing. The effect of the drug seemed to delay—illusorily—the entry into adult life, overwhelming with multiple responsibilities and synonymous with a non-modifiable path marked by finiteness. Some specialists even spoke of a psychotic development line: the rejection of a reality replaced by another, more accommodating to the fantasy of omnipotence.
That era seems to be over: “outdated,” according to the OFDT, ecstasy pills are now replaced by cocaine, more “valued” by users. This phenomenon is accompanied by a return to favor of heroin, disconnected from the “junkie” image and associated with professional success. The observation seems incontrovertible: has performance replaced psychosis?
Traditionally an initiation rite in “primitive societies,” a symbolic passage ceremony, the consumption of psychoactive substances remains a rite of group membership. Clearly, the drug still serves as a bridge from one world to another. But the act of crossing and the choice of destination have changed in meaning: the social group integrated has become this reality, once fled by adolescents. Subterfuge of the norm that triumphs. In appearance only. For the human and health cost remains exorbitant: “1.2 million regular cannabis users, 550,000 daily users” according to the OFDT study. For heroin, whose use has seen “a 56% increase in 2008 compared to 2003,” the share of those aged 18-25 is the highest. “The prevalence of cocaine experimentation reaches 2.6% of people aged 15 to 64” after more than doubling in 10 years.
The record generally serves to measure the level of performance. Let’s hope that tomorrow addiction does not define the degree of integration.
