NCJ Number
182752
Journal
Justitiele verkenningen Volume: 25 Issue: 8 Dated: 1999 Pages: 69-79
Date Published
1999
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This article describes Swedish drug policy related to prevention, treatment, and control and gives several reasons for the policy’s severity.
Abstract
The Netherlands and Sweden are similar in certain areas such as the welfare state, social policy, and aspects of foreign policy. Therefore, Dutch people often think that Sweden would also have a liberal drug policy. However, the Swedish parliament in 1977 voted for the goal of a drug-free society; this goal is almost the opposite of the Dutch aim of normalization of the drug problem. What both countries have in common is some kind of national conceit, which explains why the two stick to their drug policies so strongly. The reasons for the severity of the Swedish drug policy include the alcohol use and the alcohol policy, the 1965-67 experiment and its alleged catastrophic consequences, the influence of Nils Bejerot and popular movements, drugs as a scapegoat for social problems, and the recent function of the fight against drugs as a symbol of the protection of the Swedish identity. 22 references