ABOLISH THE SLOGAN "A DRUG FREE SOCIETY"

A couple of years ago, Swedish Television showed a film about South Africa.
The film was about the love affair between a white man and a coloured
woman. The couple knew of course about their country's laws against this
type of relationship, and they did everything they could to conceal it.
They never went out together, they only met at night, she used the backdoor
to his house and was very careful not to keep her possessions in his
apartment.

But the police were onto them. During a raid on his apartment the police
found, at the bottom of his laundry basket, a pair of panties which were
sent to a laboratory for forensic analysis. In the final scene the woman
is seen lying in the gynaecologist's chair with her legs apart while a male
doctor puts on his plastic gloves. The final evidence of their crime would
be found inside the womans vaginal canal.

The crime the couple committed against South African law did not have any
actual victims. Therefore the crime was difficult to prove, no one had
reported anything, no one was hurt (beside the couple), no one risked
getting hurt. And yet at the same time the government insisted that
whatever the cost - measures were to be taken against this crime. The
consequences were inevitable, the state literally had to penetrate this
woman in order to determine through her bodily fluids if she was a criminal.

This South African administration of justice shocks us and yet at the same
time, the same way of thinking has become part of Swedish narcotics policy.
Consumption of narcotics is illegal and punishable in Sweden. Surreptitious
use, which is not directly visible through harmful actions, is seen as a
particular danger to society. Evidence can only be secured when the
government uses force to take blood and urine samples from its citizens and
thereby determine if any crime has been committed.

It has not always been like this in Sweden. During the 1970's Swedish drug
policy had a relatively humane attitude towards drug users. At the
beginning of the 1980s this policy changed direction. The abuser was now
regarded as the only irreplaceable link in the drug supply chain and if he
could only be stopped from using drugs then inevitably the whole chain
would collapse. Efforts were concentrated on the user in the form of
criminalisation of consumption, frequent raids and forced treatment. The
was to be, according to the official slogan, "a drug free society".

Well, it might be objected, hard drug abuse is a problem both for the
individual and for society, and a harder and more repressive drug policy
could be accepted if such a policy resulted in a decrease in the damage
caused by drugs. However any such result is difficult to ascertain. The
number of drug users increased by 40% between the late 1970s and early
1990s. And even if there was a fall in the numbers of those being recruited
to drug use in the 1980s, the numbers dropped even more during the so
called "piss-liberal" 1970s.

The costs of the harder drug policy however are obvious and include
disregard for principles of justice, introduction of forced treatment and
increased use of imprisonment. A rise in drug related deaths cannot be
excluded either. Sweden criminalised, in contradiction with Swedish legal
practice, the actual use of narcotics in 1988. In an internal investigation
by the Department of Justice of the introduction of punishment for personal
drug use, it was stressed that "it is in principle wrong to criminalise
acts which are directed towards ones own person". The same investigation
maintained that blood and urine tests are "deep violations of the integrity
of the person". Despite this, in 1993 the police were given authority to
perform these tests and up to the end of1997 39.000 blood and urine tests
have been taken.

During the 1980's special laws were passed in Sweden allowing forced
treatment for adult abusers. Such treatment has never been shown to have
any positive effect on drug abuse. On the other hand Sweden is relatively
unique from an European perspective in having such laws. Imprisonments for
narcotics related offences have tripled since the late '70s. The long
prison sentences together with application harder narcotics laws has
contributed to the worsened situation in prisons.

The number of drug related deaths are high seen from an European
perspective. This is particularly notable as the higher mortality rates are
mainly found amongst heroin addicts and this group is limited in Sweden
compared with other countries. The high and rising death toll should be
considered alongside the official Swedish claim of a successful narcotics
policy. Against this background the question must be asked if the Swedish
restrictive narcotics policy, by neglecting harm reduction, is not actually
contributing to the high death toll.

Despite this control policy, Sweden has not become "drug free". Quite the
opposite, developments during the 1990's point in the other direction, at
least in regards to occasional drug use. But what then, are the reactions?
Proposals for even more of the same medicine. Telephone tapping has been
introduced and used previously mainly in regards to narcotics related
crime. Now proposals for the use of bugging are foremost in the
investigative process. Once again narcotics legitimise the introduction of
"unorthodox measures".

The thousands of blood and urine tests taken by the police to prevent
narcotics use are not considered enough. Organisations and employers now
demand compulsory tests in schools and workplaces. The police want the
power to give drug users emetics in order to prove narcotics crimes. And
the countries largest opposition party now demands life imprisonment for
serious drug crimes.

To these existing and planned control costs should be added the direction
the policy debate is taking. Swedes cause friction with their European
neighbours by conceitedly marketing the superiority of their narcotics
policy while at the same time avoiding listening to the experiences of
other countries. EU parliamentarians from other countries who propose
decriminalisation of cannabis are described as narcotics Mafia in Swedens
largest evening paper.

Legal heroin and clean needle distribution programmes that could reduce the
suffering of addicts are dismissed from the debate by pointing out that
"society has to underline its rejection of drugs". Young people are
alienated from adult society when the rave culture is defined as a
narcotics problem that the police have to solve with top priority. And the
Prime Ministers adviser in criminal and drug political questions, member of
parliament Widar Andersson can, without any politic criticism say: "The
freedom of speech should be limited for those who overtly or covertly
spread drug propaganda".

The slogan "a drug free society" is a fundamentalist slogan. It is an
expression that means we have to eliminate something whatever the price.
The demand for a drug free Sweden becomes the demand for a drug user free
Sweden. Every addict becomes one addict too many and the costs to achieve
this goal never become too high.