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But isn’t this a dangerous way to do it? Has criminalization not yet protected people from harmful drug use? No, what is often emphasized as a success with the strict ban policy that prevails here and in Norway is that relatively few try and engage in regular use. But many people abuse it so badly that they die from it – in Sweden’s case, the majority per capita across the EU. The situation has steadily worsened since the ban was introduced, despite the fact that more and more police resources are being processed for personal use.
Fortunately, it is not only in Norway this type of policy is beginning to be questioned. Last week, the Riksdag’s Social Affairs Committee agreed that the Swedish criminalization of own use should also be assessed. This has not happened since Brå concluded in 2000 that there are “no clear signs that criminalization and increased penalties have had any deterrent effect on young people’s drug habits.” How did we get here, where a policy that has never served its purpose has been stagnant for more than 30 years?
The Swedish debate on drugs, for as long as most of us can remember, has been based on gross oversimplifications and misunderstandings. Our restrictive policy was formulated under the great influence of the psychiatrist Nils Bejerot. He saw drug use as something epidemic, a plague that spreads between people and therefore must be eradicated. It’s a theory that has never had an empirical basis, and it bears striking similarities to the reasoning Bejerot has previously given about comics.
He warned which made children stop reading other things and became susceptible to the cult of violence and perversions, and he enthusiastically called comic book reading a “mental nursery addict.” Bejerot, however, was a skilled and charismatic polemicist. His stamp of total distancing as the only acceptable attitude is repeated when the Minister of Social Affairs Hallengren, without giving explanations, is negative even about evaluating this part of the drug policy.
Other ministers are spreading pure inaccuracies. Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said that the highest drug use occurs in Djursholm and Danderyd, and that it generates violence and crime between gangs. Completely wrong, says the Central Association for Information on Alcohol and Drugs, in a new report (2/25). The mill is evenly distributed among different socioeconomic groups; if any group stands out, it is people with low education and low income.
I wish Norway can become a guiding light for objectivity and humanity. Bejerot’s policy reduces users to a combative plague, and it has cost us lives and money.
