As she had announced, the mayor (PS) of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has just proposed “4 solutions” in order to welcome and take charge of crack cocaine users in disgrace, in a letter sent to the Prime Minister, Jean Castex, this Monday, August 30.
“It is high time to open additional places of care that will allow these people to get out of the street and their dependence,” said Anne Hidalgo, adding that the Parisian elected officials had voted in favor of the creation of “Places where crack is taken care of […] on a human scale, scattered throughout the territory of Greater Paris ”.
For the elected Parisian, these spaces will have to “combine reception and rest area during the day, emergency accommodation places at night, an offer of addiction and psychiatric care, social support and a therapeutic framework”.
To do this, she presented “4 solutions” to the government, resulting from the expertise of “nearly 35 places” carried out “during the summer”.
A site dedicated to women drug addicts in the 19th arrondissement
Among them, the opening of a site “dedicated to sheltering women drug users”, which would be located in the 19th, but also the increase in financial means to expand the hours of care and the offers of care and services “in the 8 places already open to date in the 18th district”, as well as two other reception sites installed on the Grands Boulevards and whose opening could be possible “before the end of the year For one of them.
And to hope: “these new services must open as soon as possible”. “The City of Paris wishes to be able to experiment with new and more effective methods, with health professionals to support people affected by these addictions to the necessary care including psychiatric care”, wrote Anne Hidalgo to Prime Minister Jean Castex.
As a reminder, the Parisian municipality has been pleading for months for the opening of new lower-risk consumption rooms (SCMR) – more commonly known as shooting rooms – in which could be associated day care centers, but also accommodation centers. , as well as health centers. A proposal that the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin had swept aside before the summer, refusing to open new SCMRs.
“Everyone must take their share”, she added, stressing that Parisians expected from the State “better protection on a daily basis and a much more effective action against trafficking in cocaine and its derivatives which feed the market” in the capital. However, according to the city council, the fight against this trafficking is not effective enough, since the “Parisians […] see the growing number of dealers every day ”.