SWINGING THE AXE IN SWEDEN

Was It The Stockholm Strategy Or Swedish Meatballs?

Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith was on a visit to Stockholm when it
became obvious that his reshuffle had been blown by over-zealous leakers
who'd told newspapers that David Davis was to be sacked.

Along with a couple of newspaper reporters I was dogging his every step,
personally rather torn.

The reshuffle story was fascinating, meat and drink to us Westminster hacks
- - but the drugs visit was also rather interesting and might actually matter
in the real world.

It was not the best time for the Conservative leader to visit Europe's
would-be drug free capital.

The truth was that Iain Duncan Smith - or IDS as he is known - was in mid-chop.

Treatment

Like some unlucky noble victim of a hapless executioner, the
soon-to-be-former party chairman's head was hanging by bone and gristle as
IDS's axe was hesitantly swinging even as he navigated his way round
Sweden's mind bending drugs policy.

Which is that all illegal drugs are treated the same: cannabis, heroin -
they're all just as bad as each, all just as prohibited.

Users are targeted more than dealers, but get treatment not prison.

When I say to the woman who heads the city's education unit "they don't do
the same damage," her reply is at least straight forward: "They do in the end".

The effects, at least, are clear...lethargy, a tendency to fall asleep,
constant fidgeting and irritation.

And that was just the mind-numbing slide show at the Stockholm's premier
drugs education unit.

Intelligent

A man with a beard droned on over seemingly unconnected graphs. And on. And on.

Every time IDS or Oliver Letwin perkily asked an intelligent question the
bearded drugs counsellor said leadenly : "I will come to that later."

What IDS could not be aware of, but I was, thanks to our Swedish cameraman,
was that Mr Beard had said to his colleagues something like "Damn, I've
never seen any of these slides before, I don't know what to say."

For some reason our request to interview IDS then and there under the
organisation's anti-drugs posters was turned down.

It could have been because of the state of the reshuffle. Or it could have
been because the posters featured one large word: "Prat" - which I'm told
is the Swedish for "talk".

That was all we were trying to do.

Hesitation

But IDS is far too much of a gent to refuse to answer questions about the
reshuffle or petulantly storm off as some politicians would.

Full marks from me, but it's pouring petrol on the flames to refuse to
speculate on stories that you might sack your own party chairman and then
to refuse to praise him.

Of course the hesitation was because he didn't know whether he would have
to sack him outright, or would get away with simple demotion.

Back home, Conservative modernisers see this as their first great victory.

They think David Davis was sluggish in changing the party because he didn't
want to offend the party faithful.

Pride

The faithful, after all, would choose between IDS and any challenger after
the next election.

Mind-numbing? Duncan Smith during Stockholm drugs meeting

David Davis' friends point out he is not a forgiving man, not a man without
pride and temper.

They say he will enjoy revenge in that manner prescribed by Westminster
chefs: cold.

They are contemptuous of the modernisation programme: One tells me: "We
don't need one-legged Catholic lesbians voting for us."

They think all this can only lead back to the old damaging headlines about
"war" and "splits".

And us journos rub our hands in glee.

Caring

I know gossip outweighs policy ten to one but what will IDS learn from
Sweden's drugs policy?

He seems really impressed, feeling it combines total disapproval of drugs
with a relatively caring, non-penal approach to those who use them.

From what I saw much of it stems from the State and the Church's deeply
disapproving attitude to alcohol, which has only been semi-legal for much
of the last century.

Which is at least consistent. But one thing seems to me clear. You can
argue until the cows come home whether cannabis is a gateway, or pathway, drug.

But the Swedes have lovingly, and for all the best motives, tended and
cleared that pathway by insisting that all drugs are the same.

The result? The use of soft drugs is very low. And deaths from drugs are
double the European average.