Originally, Enzo* wanted to “just lose weight”. The young man, in his twenties, then inquired about the Internet about the products that could help him lose weight. He begins to have amphetamines delivered to the family home, in the Paris region. His mother, Lisa*, is not more worried than that. But month after month, his son’s behavior changes: Enzo isolates himself, locks himself in his room, feels more and more “persecuted” by his relatives. In early 2024, he had a first psychotic crisis, nourished by a strong feeling of paranoia. “He had panic attacks, became completely delusional, insomniac, violent and unpredictable,” describes Lisa. Her younger is hospitalized for the first time in psychiatry; He will stay there six months. The doctors then evoke a “pharmaco-psychosis” and a psychostimulant taking, without giving more details to his mother. She admits “entering a certain denial”, without imagining that her son can take drugs.
It was only after his third hospital stay that his family discovers his addiction to cocaine. “We knew later that he consumed almost daily, and could take up to 5 grams in an evening. At the end of his last hospitalization, last February, he ordered ten grams at once. Released at 12:30 pm, he was completely smashed at 2:30 pm”, blows his sister. Since then, the family’s fight to find suitable care no longer ends. “In psychiatry, they try to turn off the fire of his crises, but do not focus on his addiction. In addictology, you have to wait for weeks to obtain a consultation to which he must be consenting – during this time, he decompens psychologically, and therefore finds himself in psychiatry. It is a vicious circle,” says Lisa.
Long considered a expensive drug, limited to easy customers or certain professional circles, cocaine has infiltrated, in recent years, in more and more French households, flooded by an almost unlimited offer. In 2024, 53.5 tonnes of cocaine were thus seized by the French authorities … 130 % more than in 2023. At the other end of the chain, the profile of users evolves: from 2017 to 2023, the number of French people to have consumed cocaine over the past year was multiplied by two, according to The last report of the French Observatory of Drugs and Addictive Trends (OFDT). Even the youngest are affected by the phenomenon. In 2023, 6.4 % of 18-24 year olds indicated that they had already tasted cocaine during their lifetime, and 3 % had consumed over the last twelve months.
“Obstacle course”
Addictologists can only note this “slow but worrying” development, as Stéphane Billard, head of the addictology department of Quimper, in Brittany, describes. While hospitalizations for addiction of young adults were almost nonexistent in his service ten years ago, the doctor now welcomes “around twenty young people aged 18 to 25” out of the 130 patients hospitalized annually in his service. “Where we used to see only addictions to cannabis or alcohol, they are now accompanied by cocaine, ketamine or drug addictions, in increasingly young patients,” he notes. So much so that Stéphane Billard organizes, once a month in his service, an information meeting for parents.
“Often, families are totally unarmeded by the discovery of the use of cocaine in their child, and do not know who to contact. Then begins a appalling obstacle course,” summarizes Claire Moscicki, president of the Lyon association Le Phare, which offers family support for drugs. For “two or three years”, this volunteer has seen the number of parents’ requests on the subject of cocaine “explode”, now concerning “near one in two calls”. “Often, they ask me where to find the place where to put their child safe to stop consuming right away. Unfortunately, this Eldorado does not exist,” she explains.
Sylvie can testify. This mother discovered the cocaine addiction of her elder in 2015, when the art school of her son calls her to warn her that the latter made “discomfort”. In reality, the 20 -year -old young man is in full “delusional puff”, according to his mother – a large dose of cocaine will be found in his blood. Hospitalized in a psychiatric unit, it emerges “full of drugs”, with a simple preconception to consult a psychiatrist. “We found ourselves completely helpless”, breathes Sylvie, who tells the same medical wandering as Lisa: late meetings in CSAPA (care, support and prevention centers in addictology), regular passages in psychiatry to manage crises, unnecessary weaning cures in public or private establishments, “where dealers are waiting for patients.”
The mother tells the feeling of going around in circles for ten years, the gap crises, the flights of the credit card … and an increasingly simple accessibility for drugs. “Wherever he was, he could be delivered. Cocaine is everywhere, and less and less expensive. He sometimes reached a consumption of 10 grams per day, while touching on other products such as ketamine or crack,” explains Sylvie.
Lack of coordination in care
If support for relatives is sometimes offered in CSAPAs, parents of young adults in addiction do not “often allow themselves to treat themselves”, notes Virginie Barcelo, who created in 2022 the WhatsApp “Parents of anonymous addicts”, overseen by the Saint-Jean Espérance association, which has been welcoming young toxicomans since the 80s. Since then, more than 200 parents have been added to it, and have exchanged daily on their situations, their doubts, their good addresses or their advice. “Last week, we had more than 800 interventions in six days,” said the volunteer, who welcomes the existence of such a group, an initiative still rare in France.
In Vienne, Cécile did not have the chance to come across such support. In 2019, when her son Dorian, then 15 years old, fell into addiction to several products – including cocaine -, she recounts the strong feeling of solitude that embraces her. “There is a lot of guilt. The fight was twofold: finding places in institutions, while preserving a link with him,” recalls this specialized educator. But the young man being non -consenting to care, Cécile quickly finds himself in a dead end. “We also came across good professionals, but there was a real lack of coordination in care, ruptures that did not allow him to wean properly in the long term,” says Cécile. Until today in August 2023, when the region of the region joined it on its cell phone. Dorian died of an overdose, at the age of 19.
To help parents, Cécile has since joined a Facebook group bringing together relatives of young addicts, and wishes to create her own association. “When I see the power that certain parents’ associations have on the public authorities, I tell myself that there may be something to do,” said the specialized educator. According to the OFDTBetween 2010 and 2022, the rate of use of emergencies for cocaine used in France, going from 8.6 % to 21.2 % per 100,000 passages. That of processing requests for cocaine within CSAPA has more than doubled since 2010.
*The first names have been modified at the request of the persons concerned.
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