Jean, 20 ans, étudiant en école de commerce: "C'est une question que je ne me pose plus trop, tant la réponse est enracinée en moi. Quand j'étais au collège et au début du lycée, j'ai toujours refusé de fumer quand on m'a proposé de prendre ne serait-ce qu'une taffe, parce que je voulais être un vrai sportif qui ne prend rien. A l'époque je faisais plusieurs heures de rugby par semaine. Au fond, j'avais sans doute aussi peur de la réaction de mon corps au produit, car nous sommes tous inégaux face à la drogue.
Et puis, en terminale, j'ai retrouvé un de mes anciens bons amis de collège que je n'avais pas revu depuis. Lui qui était si jovial, drôle et dynamique était devenu complètement apathique, sans motivation, ni désir. Il avait redoublé et avait changé trois fois de lycée. Il s'était surtout mis à fumer quotidiennement des joints. Cela a commencé à me faire prendre conscience de la dangerosité de cette drogue qu'avec hypocrisie et mensonge certains osent appeler « drogue douce ».
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.
It takes courage to tell the truth about cannabis which is too often trivialized. My generation (I am 40 years old) trivializes its use and I confirm that all social groups and generations are affected (Parents, Grandparents) even in my professional sphere. Cannabis and alcohol are evils prevailing in society and affect ALL OF OUR YOUTH, even the very young (well-off , intellectuals ... ). Unfortunately it's all true!
It's my brother who's doing drugs. He's not going to school anymore, he wanders outside...When he comes back home he is violent and he fights with my mother. Sometimes I am really scared.
My father and my mother don't live together anymore. My father smokes plants that he grows with lamps in his cupboard. He says that it doesn't do him any harm, but he forgets everything.
After having followed a seminar in Enfance Sans Drogue, I realized that it was urgent that parents become invested in informing our young children about the dangers of drugs.
I called the director of my children's school with a proposal to speak on this issue to 4th and 5th grade classes.
After school, with some of my friends, we tried alcohol and marijuana for the first time: and that is when evil entered my life. At first, I hid what I was doing from my family and everyone else. I was convinced that I had discovered the real life and I spent my evenings going from one party to another: the fun never stopped.
The first time was at the end of 8th grade, I took some cannabis with a school friend. It wasn't a regular thing. In 9th grade I started to take it more often. I repeated 10th grade. I was taking several joints per day and also bongs. At the end of the first term I was kicked out of high school.
My parents put me into a private school but I didn't feel like studying, it wasn't my thing. Since last year I have felt more stable, but I've no intention of giving up cannabis, I can't imagine my life otherwise. I know my friends feel the same way, it's good this way.
You –[editor's note: MC d'Welles]- gave a conference on drugs last year. At the time I was taking drugs every day. 6 months later, I don't take any.
I was sixteen years old. As we take cannabis every day, obviously we had to take some thing else to party! I liked it at once mainly because I am the shy type. It was as if I had everything. Really everything.
It was mainly to be with my mates. At the end of 9th grade, I would smoke five to six joints a day. It would replace cigarettes.
Then I mixed it with anything that I could get my hands on. For us it's normal to take drugs, I can see that many have started using. There are some who are always stoned, it doesn't seem to affect them but for their studies it's not cool. We tend not to care about people who are not like us – they don't know anything. I've already repeated twice. My parents don't know I take all that stuff, we never talk about it. We hardly talk...
I like her and I don't want her to waste her life with it. What shall I do?
Looking back on it, I told myself that I joined the organization – in 2000 – out of a mother's pure love! Actually, it was the fear that I would find out too late or say to myself "If only I had known!", especially for my 16 year old daughter, when my husband and I had been managing a night club for years.
and two years ago I discovered that several of my schoolmates –not necessarily from my class – were doing drugs. They smoked joints.
Given the fact that young people are worried about drugs at an earlier and earlier age, Enfance Sans Drogue is focusing on 5th grade pupils.
At a party at a friend's, someone was smoking a joint and he dared me … and that is how it started.
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?
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.
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.
Member Organization of Make Mothers Matter, granted General Consultative Status by the United Nations.