France: drugs in prison, an open secret

Solenn Lebret-Dallaserra. The substance that is all over French prisons is cannabis resin, known as hash. The reason is simple: the smell is not as strong as cannabis leaves, plus it is easier to cut and store. It is also cultural. Most of the prisoners at the facility where I work are young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Hash is cheaper, and they are more used to this substance than other ones. While most people smoked before going to prison, drug use takes on a new dimension on the inside.

It is not hidden either. Moving through a prison, you will catch a whiff of cannabis really fast: in the corridors and yard, and sometimes even during activities.
Prison staff are well aware of the widespread presence of drugs. Prison integration and probation counsellors have told us that two or three joints a day is considered normal consumption for a prisoner. This shows the extent to which it has become commonplace.

SLD. If you can smell drugs in prison, guards can smell them, too. There is quite a high tolerance for drug use. When they see a prisoner smoking a cannabis joint, the guards shout but rarely file a report. There are not any legal repercussions.

The problem in prison is trafficking. Trafficking is huge, even if it was significantly cut down by COVID-19. Because visiting rooms had Plexiglas separators, it was harder for visitors to hand drugs over to prisoners. There is no tolerance for trafficking. When hash is found in a cell, disciplinary action is taken immediately. The only way out of it is to frame someone else. That is what happens to the “drugs minders”.

Some prisoners who traffic on a large scale will ask other prisoners to hold their drugs in their cells in exchange for money, food or protection. They are known as “drugs minders” and are the ones who pay the price when drugs are found in their cells during raids.

This is not the way to stop trafficking, and the guards are well aware of this system. But since drug use gives prisoners a way to console themselves, the prison administration sees value in it.

SLD. Most of the prisoners where I work are suburban youth. The first institution they have had to deal with head-on is the police. For most, the police/justice system has been horrible to them since early childhood.

These young people naturally have a huge distrust in the system. They tend to consider that all measures taken in the world of justice, and by extension, all the services offered in prison, are only there to harm them.

This was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many prisoners refused vaccination. It was not just out of fear of the vaccine, but mostly out of rejection of the vaccine in prison. Lots of them thought that the vaccine given to prisoners could only be poisonous. They have no faith in most of the prison staff.

For them, prison is a temporary situation that only lasts for a while, and if they ever need to be treated, it will be outside of the prison walls. It is quite difficult to deconstruct this prison myth and make them understand that they can get treatment, and that doctors are there for their benefit.