"NO ONE DEMANDS COCAIN IN THE GROCERY STORE"

The Swedes who signed the New York Times drug war proclamation answer
Social Minister Margot Wallstrom: "Specify your accusations of drug
liberalism".

Social Minister Margot Wallstrom demands in her DN guest editorial 21/6
that the twelve Swedes who signed a proclamation on narcotics policy
submitted to the UN Secretary General should "Come fowards and explain mo
re
cleary what it is they are really after".

The proclamation was signed by 650 people from around the world, among th
em
were former UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, chairman of
international Pen, several current and former presidents, ministers and
parliament members as well as Nobel laureates, high court judges and
prominent researchers.

The proclamation has not yet been seen by Swedish newspaper readers,
although those who signed it have been characterized in the media as
ignorant, deceived, ambiguous, cowardly and more. In order to clarify wha
t
we have said and not said, we here cite the letter. The proclamation
concerns the global situation and not necessarily any individual country.

"On the occasion of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session o
n
Drugs in New York on June 8-10, 1998, we seek your leadership in
stimulating a frank and honest evaluation of global drug control efforts.

We are all deeply concerned about the threat that drugs pose to our
children, our fellow citizens and our societies. There is no choice but t
o
work together, both within our countries and across borders, to reduce th
e
harms associated with drugs. The United Nations has a legitimate and
important role to play in this regard -- but only if it is willing to ask
and address tough questions about the success or failure of its efforts.

We believe that the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than dru
g
abuse itself.

Every decade the United Nations adopts new international conventions,
focused largely on criminalization and punishment, that restrict the
ability of individual nations to devise effective solutions to local drug
problems. Every year governments enact more punitive and costly drug
control measures. Every day politicians endorse harsher new drug war
strategies.

What is the result? U.N. agencies estimate the annual revenue generated b
y
the illegal drug industry at $400 billion, or the equivalent of roughly
eight per cent of total international trade. This industry has empowered
organized criminals, corrupted governments at all levels, eroded internal
security, stimulated violence, and distorted both economic markets and
moral values. These are the consequences not of drug use per se, but of
decades of failed and futile drug war policies.

In many parts of the world, drug war politics impede public health effort
s
to stem the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other infectious diseases. Human
rights are violated, environmental assaults perpetrated and prisons
inundated with hundreds of thousands of drug law violators. Scarce
resources better expended on health, education and economic development a
re
squandered on ever more expensive interdiction efforts. Realistic proposa
ls
to reduce drug-related crime, disease and death are abandoned in favor of
rhetorical proposals to create drug-free societies.

Persisting in our current policies will only result in more drug abuse,
more empowerment of drug markets and criminals, and more disease and
suffering. Too often those who call for open debate, rigorous analysis of
current policies, and serious consideration of alternatives are accused o
f
"surrendering." But the true surrender is when fear and inertia combine t
o
shut off debate, suppress critical analysis, and dismiss all alternatives
to current policies.

Mr. Secretary General, we appeal to you to initiate a truly open and hone
st
dialogue regarding the future of global drug control policies - one in
which fear, prejudice and punitive prohibitions yield to common sense,
science, public health and human rights."

Margot Wallstrom contends that the Swedes who signed this proclamation ar
e
drug liberals and support the legalization of narcotics, that they make
unreasonable assertions about the costs of the war on drugs and are lacki
ng
in alternatives. Let us address these accusations.

Regarding legalization, the issue is not raised in the proclamation.

The question of whether one is for or against the legalization of narcoti
cs
is moreover of no interest as long as Margot Wallstrom does not specify
what she is meaqns. No one demands cocain at the grocery store. In Sweden
methadone is legally prescribed and until 1988 use of drugs was not a
criminal offence. Does this mean that we have or have had legalisation in
Sweden and that Parliament is or has been "drug liberal"?

Margot Wallstrom says that we are making unreasonable assertions when we
say that the war on drugs is more damaging than the actual drugs. Example
s
of the costs of the drug war are given in the proclamation. In the USA fo
r
example the prison population has risen four-fold, mainly because of long
sentences for drug offences. Today the USA has 1,7 million prison inmates
in relation to population, more than ten times as many as in Sweden.

Under the slogan "a drug free society" Sweden has, since the beginning of
the 1980's, begun forced treatment of abusers, taken more than 40 000
compulsory urine and blood tests and prison sentenses for drug crimes hav
e
more than doubled. The Swedish researchers who signed the proclamation ca
n
find no evidence in their research for the success of this kind of policy.

We who signed the proclamation are worried about the suggestions for an
even more repressive drug policy which have been proposed. Widar Andersso
n,
adviser to the Prime Minister, has said "freedom of speech ought to be
denied to those who covertly or openly propagandize for narcotics" and Ca
rl
Bildt and Gun Hellsvik have recently demanded that the police should be
given the power to administer emetics, advocated urine analysis for minor
s
and life sentences as solutions to the drug problem. Does the Social
Minister find it pertinent to demand that these Swedes should step foward
s
and explain themselves?

We are also worried about the rising death rate among drug users in Swede
n,
which now exceed 200 per year, and wonder if this is connected to the
criminal justice orientation in Swedish drug policy. A country like the
Netherlands, with a more liberal policy, has noticably lower death rate
from a European perspective. And even if causual relationships and
comparisons with other nations are alway open to discussion, we think tha
t
one cannot just ignore the Swedish death rate in the drug debate.

We are accused of not providing any alternatives. It might be considered
enough of an alternative to demand change in an inhuman, expensive and
ineffective policy. It usually is considered reasonable in other policy
areas. One man-year in a closed prison in Sweden costs more than 1/2
million skr (US$62,500) and the most effective use of the police might no
t
be in the collection of urine samples from already known drug users.

Our alternative originates from the premis that the drug problem not is a
new phenomenon separate from the old usual ones - alcohol abuse, street
prostitution and habitual criminality. It is concerns the same groups and
is about marginalization and alienation. The official political focus on
the narcotic substance itself hides the real reasons for drug abuse such
as
unemployment, poverty, urban decay and inequality.

And even if one focus on drugs, is it then really narcotics which are the
all over-shadowing problem? An article in the same newspaper, next to
Margot Wallstroms guest editorial, started with the words: "Drunkeness,
fights, rape, drownings and knife murders. That is the summary of midsumm
er
celebrations around the country."

Now Margot Wallstrom might contend that the social and employment policy
factors are obviously important and in no way conflict with the repressiv
e
aspect of narcotics policy. The important outcome of the UN meeting is sa
id
to be that now, partially building upon the Swedish example, efforts to
reduce demand are to be accentuated. We agree that this change in
perspective is positive. The determining factor however is how demand is
to
be reduced ie. how to get addicts to stop using drugs. In Sweden care and
rehabilitation have been reduced, extra personnel in schools have been
withdrawn and youth unemployment has increased drastically during the
1990's. The hallmark of Swedish drug policy has come more and more to be
the police slogan "It is going to be tough to be a drug abuser".

For Margot Wallstrom the UN has just made a break-through and decided upo
n
a sound program. The global fight has just begun. The problem has been th
at
until now we have not waged a war against drugs. In a debate editorial in
DN 20.9.1989 the then Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson described the UN's b
ig
1987 political manifestation against drugs and Swedens proposal to the
General Assembly for " A Global plan of action against drugs". And alread
y
then the war on drugs had been going on for a long time - in the UN, the
USA and other countries.

Against this background the proclamation and our demands are very
reasonable - that drug policy should be opened up for expertise and dialo
g.
We would gladly expand, where there is space, on drug policy problems and
dilemmas in regards to law-making, efficiency, costs, supernational
descision making, democratic principles and not least - humanitarianism.