HOW NOT TO REDUCE THE DRUGS TRADE

The Swedish Model of Drug Criminalisation Does Not Work

Today far fewer drug dealers are arrested, but many more users are. At the
same time drug abuse is a social problem that cannot be criminalised away,
writes Goran Grauers.

Sweden has created a system that has moved as far down the narcotics ladder
as it is possible to go in the fight against drugs. We don't arrest the
dealers and smugglers, we arrest the abusers. Why don't we arrest alcoholics
and throw them in prison as well? No, abuse is a social problem and cannot
be criminalised away.

Crowded In Prison

We only need to look at the figures from customs and CAN ( Central For Drug
and Narcotics Information) to see that this is completely insane. So far
this year customs have seized well over one ton of hasch. If we play with
the thought that everyone who uses hasch smokes half a gram per day (this is
on average far too high a figure) then it means there are about 3000 abusers
in the country who should be in prison. But as customs admit they only seize
about 10% of what is coming into the country, it means there are 30,000
people who qualify for prison walking our streets. CAN has estimated there
are about 20,000 heavy drug abusers in Sweden who use amphetamine or heroin
daily. We now have a figure of 50,000 potential convicts and we haven't yet
counted all those who use cocaine, ecstasy, smoking heroin, anabolic steroids
and all the other drugs.

Arresting heavy drug abusers should not be a problem. Most of them are known
to the police and Social Services. They need their drugs daily, so it
shouldn't be too big a problem to follow them and arrest them. But do we
have enough space in prison for them all?

Who Is Going To Stop It?

If we continue to use CAN's figures we see that a heavy drug abuser needs
2500 Kronor ($250 USD) per day to finance his abuse. They steal their drug
money, but only get 10% of the value of stolen goods and cause damage of an
equivalent value (smashed car windows etc). We are now up to a daily cost of
50000 Kronor ($5.000 USD) per abuser. This figure times 20000 gives a daily
cost of one billion Kronor ($100.000.000 USD).

Who is going to stop this? The radio manufacturer who sees a radio stolen
from a car? Hardly. He gets a new market because the kind of person who buys
stolen goods is not a potential customer. He sells a new radio anyway as the
stolen one is replaced by the insurance company and self risk.

The insurance company then? Won't they put a stop to it? Certainly not, they
make enormous profits and as long as we pay our premiums we won't hear a
word from them. How about the government, won't they put a stop to all this?
Hardly believable as one billion in lost production per day would have major
consequences with a massive rise in bankrupcies and unemployment. The
Swedish state does not bear the financial cost of drug abuse, it is us
citizens in the form of insurance premiums and other personal losses. A loss
of one billion is the figure for Sweden, how big is the figure for the
western world and what would be the consequences of this market vanishing?

Multi Billion Industry

Is the government really serious about its narcotics policy? It's difficult
to believe this as they do not arrest all the heavy drug abusers who
demonstrably are known to the police and social services. If they were
serious the cost of more prisons would be astronomical and I believe we
citizens would start to question the policy. Taxes would rise dramatically,
or else we would have to completely scrap health care, schools and
roadworks.

If we look at the problem internationally we see that the drugs mafia,
according to German police, invested 700 billion Swedish kronor in financial
institutions, banks, media and airlines in just 1992. The United Nations
estimated that the narcotics industry turned over 500 billion dollars during
1999 and thus controls 10% of world trade, greater than the entire worlds
automobile industry.

Quiet About the Results

If the world decided to use the same policies as Sweden, we would soon find
that a large part of the worlds population would be in prison. The whole of
Great Britain would not be big enough for a prison colony.

It seems we in Sweden believe we can solve these problems by throwing
abusers in prison, but personally I think it is a little naive and
frightening that a Minister of Justice should be forced to recant when he
points out the truth.

All of the above information is from the United Nations, German police,
customs, insurance companies and CAN. No one can question the figures, but
no one will admit that the conclusions drawn from them are the result.