Sweden:
Small
Cracks
Emerge
in
Drug
War
Consensus
in
Europe's
Bastion
of
Reaction
11/17/00
While Sweden's hard-line stance on drugs, the toughest in Western Europe, will remain the law of the land in the foreseeable future, events in the last few weeks suggest that change may be looming just beyond the horizon. In the 1990s, while most of Europe was moving toward harm reduction and decriminalization strategies toward drug use, Sweden went in the opposite direction. In 1988, Sweden criminalized not just the possession but also the use of drugs. Five years later, it increased the maximum sentence for being high to six months in prison and empowered police to force suspected drug users to submit to blood and urine tests in order to arrest them for consumption of drugs. Now, a new report from the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention has called that policy's tactics and effectiveness into question. As reported in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the council found that arrests for minor drug offenses had increased 70% from 1991 to 1997, that the number of drug tests of suspected users had more than doubled, but that youth drug use continued to rise. "On the basis of the information that is available regarding the development of illegal drug use there are no clear-cut signs that the criminalization of drug use and the more stringent laws have had any deterrent effect," the report stated. Criminologist Henrik Tham, a longtime critic of Swedish drug policies, told the Nyheter, "The statistics show that our tough legislation has not had any effect, even though the police are inspecting body fluids in their search for illegal drugs." Critics may have an ally in the new Justice Minister, 38-year-old Thomas Bodstrom, who was appointed in mid-October. Two years ago, Bodstrom penned a critique of Swedish drug laws in the policy journal Liberal Debatt in which he described the criminalization of drug use as "completely meaningless" and criticized his predecessor, Laila Freivalds, for engaging in a "boring" debate with opposition drug warriors over whose policy was toughest. In an October 15th interview with the newspaper Expressen, Bodstrom also detailed his own hash-smoking history. He smoked hash "many times" in his teenage years, "at parties and things like that," he said. Bodstrom took pains to point out that he did not have a criminal record because of hash-smoking and, when asked whether he should have been imprisoned, he responded, "No, I could not have been because it was not illegal." But this potential ally was backtracking within days as he faced mounting pressure from supporters of the status quo. Choosing his words carefully, he told the Nyheter, "What I was addressing in the Liberal Debatt article is the oversimplifying and caricaturizing that the Moderates [conservative opposition party] stand for with their belief that punishment is all that is necessary to fight crime. And that is absolutely not the case." Bodstrom also parsed his earlier remarks about "meaningless criminalization," telling the Nyheter that he now supported criminalization. "Yes, it is important. But we should not rest with that. It is rather meaningless to have only criminalization. The authorities must work preventatively and follow up punishment with care. Punishment alone means drug users are excluded from society," he said. Where Bodstrom will end up on drug policy remains to be seen, but he is now in the hot seat. Meanwhile, latent tensions over drug policy found expression in a teapot tempest over the kind of police presence required to control an MTV festival at Stockholm's suburban Globe theater scheduled for Thursday evening. According to reports in the newspaper Aftonbladet, local police authorities graciously declined offers from the country's "Rave Commission" drug squad and the Stockholm drug task force to help police the event. The festival features a number of global pop music stars and is expected to draw thousands of fans from across Europe. "Thank you for your interest, but we don't see any need for your services," local police commanders wrote in their reply to the eager narcs. "The risk for drugs is not bigger during the MTV festival than for other concerts," police commander Bruno Jarlestad told Aftonbladet. "Why should I presume that the world's elite artists are a bunch of junkies?" Such an attitude did not sit well with either the drug squads or their civilian cheerleaders. Drug police accused local commanders of trying to avoid drug scandals and said they had 20 officers "ready to march." Still, responded Jarlestad, "The Globe is within our jurisdiction. We have people who know the arena and can uphold law and order. There is no need for drug squads from the city to go there and show off and look for people under the influence of drugs." Anti-drug crusaders such as Malou Lindholm, who has exported her brand of wisdom to drug squabbles as far away as Australia, and Torgny Peterson, the head of European Cities Against Drugs, are up in arms. Peterson went so far as to send an open letter to the Stockholm police commission reminding authorities that police "are obligated to enforce existing narcotics legislation." Peterson accused local police commanders of "arrogance but also an extensive ignorance about the presence of drugs in this type of event." Peterson and his allies, however, got no succor from the police commission. Chairwoman Kristina Axen Olin told Aftonbladet that no special police presence is in place during concerts at the Globe. "Therefore, it's not unusual if the local police department has made the judgment that extra help is needed," she said. "All policemen are trained to handle drug issues." By Wednesday, however, local police commanders reversed course in the face of the criticism, allowing the drug squads to be present during the festival. Local police spokesman Jarlestad remained unconvinced that the narcs were needed. "The Rave Commission wants to come and we might need to bring in the marine police if it rains a lot. Then in case of a hostage drama I guess we'll have to bring in the national crisis team and some negotiators as well," he sneered to Aftonbladet. Swedish drug war zealots can also rest easier knowing that Swedish Customs has brought in the drug dogs at Arlanda airport to ensure that visiting fans and musicians are coming in clean. As of press time, DRCNet had no reports of drug-addled music fans rampaging through Sweden before, during, or after the festival.
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