Usage des plaisirs ; usages de soi. Une genèse de la criminalisation des conduites addictives

This contribution ponders over the reasons why the consumption of psychoactive substances (drugs) has not always been considered as a use of one's body demanding condemnation by law and moral reprobation. It will be established that three factors must be combined so that law and moral standards become concerned about the use of these substances: the building-up of the status of drugs with, as a consequence, the distinction between philters, poisons and medicines; the growing concern for public health with the setting up of distinct institutions; the outcome of a new status for the subject, offering him the possibility to make use of his body, without using it as a material thing. In order to criminalize and condemn the use of psychoactive substances, three conditions are required: the transition from secret to public, from pernicious to dangerous, from private to intimate.