Swedish Drug Policy in the Twenty-First Century: A Policy Model Going Astray

During the 1990s, the drug problem in Sweden stabilized in spite of a heroin wave on the European continent and in the United Kingdom. The preconditions for this control policy are discussed, as are the advantages of the Swedish drug control model with its massiveness regarding prevention, treatment...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 2002-07, Vol.582 (2), p.64-79
Main Authors: Lenke, Leif, Olsson, Boerje
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Alcoholic beverages
Conservatism
Criminal Justice Policy
Drug Abuse
Drug control
Drug policy
Drug prevention
Drug related crimes
Drug use
Europe
Health Policy
Heroin
Law Enforcement
Nongovernmental organizations
Police
Policy making
Political parties
Political science
Sweden
Temperance movements
Tolerance
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:During the 1990s, the drug problem in Sweden stabilized in spite of a heroin wave on the European continent and in the United Kingdom. The preconditions for this control policy are discussed, as are the advantages of the Swedish drug control model with its massiveness regarding prevention, treatment, and repression. When drawing conclusions from the 1980s, focus has been placed on zero tolerance and dissociation of harm reduction activities in connection with the economic crisis that, although temporary, hit Swedish society in the 1990s. This resulted in the control policy's having a list so that preventive measures and treatment had to give in on behalf of further strengthening of the police in the drug control model. The change in focus toward an even more pronounced zero tolerance approach did not yield any visible results regarding drug use. Experimenting with drugs and heavy drug use increased considerably during the 1990s.
ISSN:0002-7162
1552-3349
DOI:10.1177/0002716202058002005