LAW WITHOUT MUSCLE

Now the government want to criminalize doping. Just as it is illegal to
harm your body with narcotics, soon it will also be illegal to pump up with
anabolic steroids. The purpose, of course, is well intentioned. The
Government says the ban will give a clear signal of how seriously society
regards doping. And it certainly is serious, no one denies that, but it is
nevertheless not reasonable to pass laws just to send messages and
political signals. Laws are too serious to be used in this way. In the
first place people must believe in laws and respect them. A law forbidding
doping is in practice nearly impossible to enforce, especially if people
are taking testosterone or growth hormones or anything else that already
exists in the body. And a law that cannot be enforced is not taken
seriously with the result that respect for the law is diminished. It is
exactly the same with the laws against taking narcotics or buying the
services of prostitutes, there is no reasonable possibility of enforcing
these laws and they end up as mere moral preaching and wagging fingers.

According to modern Swedish law it is not a crime to inflict damage upon
ones own body. It is a long time since suicide was illegal. Even though it
is considered reasonable and important to ban narcotics and doping, this
does not mean that abuse should be considered criminal. Wether one damages
ones body with legal or illegal substances can have no bearing on the legal
situation. It is still not a crime to damage oneself. If it is criminal to
damage oneself with steroids or heroin
one has to wonder how it can then be permitted to eat until
grotesquely fat or penetrate the body with needles or pump it full of
silicon - not to mention smoking or drinking yourself to death.
Criminalising abuse has absurd consequences and is judicially unsound -
what should be done for example with those who intoxicate themselves with
sleeping pills or inhale solvents? should those go free while pot smokers
are imprisoned?

Abuse should be treated, not punished. Abusers are sick people who need
care, not punishment. That would be the mark of a good Swedish criminal
justice system.