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La drogue est illégale, donc ils ne la laissent jamais passer.

La drogue est illégale, donc ils ne la laissent jamais passer.
The drug is illegal, so they never let it through.
From Lesson 261:Permission and non-intervention (laisser + infinitive)·French

Questions & Answers about La drogue est illégale, donc ils ne la laissent jamais passer.

Why is the pronoun la placed before laissent instead of before passer?
Normally, when you have a conjugated verb and an infinitive, the object pronoun goes right before the infinitive. However, with laisser + infinitive, the two verbs act together as a single unit. Because of this, the object pronoun la (meaning it, referring to la drogue) jumps all the way in front of the conjugated verb laissent.
Why is the verb passer in the infinitive here?
This sentence uses the structure laisser + infinitive, which means to let someone or something do something. The first verb, laissent, is conjugated to match the subject ils, and the second verb, passer, stays in its raw infinitive form to mean let pass or let through.
Why does jamais come before passer?
In French, negative wrappers like ne ... jamais (never) go around the conjugated verb. Since laissent is the conjugated verb, the jamais goes right after it, taking its place before the infinitive passer.
Why does illégale have an extra e at the end?
Because it describes la drogue, which is a feminine noun. French adjectives must agree in gender with the noun they modify, so the masculine word illégal gets an extra e to become feminine.

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