HOW CHANGING TACK SET A COURSE FOR SUCCESS

Sweden Has Experimented With Solutions To The Drugs Problem.

Detective Eva Brannmark tell NAOMI TOY of their disasters and successes

FOR the past month, Detective Superintendent Eva Brannmark, one of Sweden's
highest ranking police officers, has been travelling around Australia
sharing her ideas on how to stop the spreading scourge of illegal drugs.

Along the way Supt Brannmark has gained the respect of many and will take
home with her fond memories and a few souvenirs.

But what won't be included is any aspect of Australia's approach to
controlling the growing use and distribution of illegal drugs.

Nothing she has heard has impressed her.

For the past 10 years Supt Brannmark, who has been brought to Sydney for a
week by the Salvation Army to talk to senior police and community groups,
has been in charge of developing Sweden's drug policy, which focuses on
prevention and rehabilitating addicts.

To judge the success of the program, the numbers speak for themselves.

According to the 1997 United Nations World Drug Report, lifetime prevalence
of drug use for 10-29 year olds in Sweden is 9 per cent compared with 52
per cent of 14-25 year olds in Australia. Sweden has an estimated 500
dependent heroin users per million people, whereas Australia has between
5000-16,000 per million.

Supt Brannmark, who has been in the Swedish Police Service for 36 years,
believes the only way to begin to solve the drug crisis is to rehabilitate
addicts and stop today's children becoming tomorrow's users.

They get tough on the suppliers, manufacturers and importers of drugs but
would "sentence" users to rehabilitation rather than jail.

"We never ever put anyone in prison just for using drugs," she said.

Sanctioning the use of iliegal drugs through harm minimisation education
policies, shooting galleries and prescribing heroin to addicts will only
make the problem worse.

Supt Brannmarks said shooting galleries may afford addicts a relatively
safe area to get their fix but also provide a contained customer base for
street-level dealers to prosper.

"Most of the heroin addicts, they are not using only heroin," Supt
Brannmark told The Daily Telegraph.

"They are using cocaine, methamphetamines, amphetamines, and cannabis as well.

"Even if you give them the heroin they will still want the rest of the
drugs they are used to. So are you going to give them those drugs as well?"

In the mid-1960s, Sweden dabbled with the idea of offering legally
prescribed opiates and amphetamines.

Supt Brannmark, then working as a beat cop, said the policy was a disaster.
Drug use soared, crime rates stayed the same, and any control the police
once had was lost.

A few years and a number of drug-related deaths later, the government
abolished the policy. But Supt Brannmark says Sweden is still paying the
price 30 years later.

"We still suffer from that period of time," she said.

"We would have been even better off in Sweden if we hadn't made that
terrible mistake. The consequences were terrible but I wouldn't dare to
think about the consequences if we had done it today."

Since 1993, police, providing they have "reasonable cause" have been able
to take urine samples from people suspected of being under the influence of
drugs.

From this step, police are sometimes able to get a search warrant on
addicts homes where often booties of stolen goods are discovered and other
serious crimes solved.

Another important feature that has aided Sweden's war against drugs is the
consensus among authorities and politicians. Twice a year police, Customs,
prison and probation officers prosecutors and social workers from around
the country meet to discuss drug policies, refining the old ones and
adopting the new.

"This is not a problem for the police, not a problem for customs, not a
problem for social workers," Supt Brannmark said. "This is a problem for
the whole society. You need the partnership."