Pubdate: Thu, 29 Aug 2002
Source: Guardian Weekly, The (UK)
Copyright: Guardian Publications 2002
Contact:  http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/GWeekly/front/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/633
Author: Andrew Osborn, in Oslo
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

EXPENSIVE OSLO - CITY OF THE CHEAP FIX

Norwegian Capital Tops Europe's Overdose Deaths League

Its standard of living was officially recognised this month as the best 
money can buy, but Norway has a darker, less publicised claim to fame: Oslo 
has become Europe's drug overdose capital and is awash with heroin.

The city is infamously expensive. A pint of beer will set you back $7.50, a 
packet of cigarettes $8.50. Heroin, however, is relatively cheap - one 
tenth of a gram costs about the same as 20 Marlboro.

The drug's relative affordability has encouraged thousands of Norwegians to 
develop a habit, with fatal consequences. Every fifth autopsy carried out 
by the city coroner now reaches the same depressing conclusion: death by 
drug overdose. Oslo has the worst rate of drug-related deaths of 42 
European cities, according to a report by the Council of Europe's Pompidou 
Group, set up in 1971 to study drug abuse and trafficking.

Last year 338 Norwegians died from drug overdoses, 114 of them in Oslo, 
compared with 75 in 1990. The Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug 
Research estimates that the number of intravenous users has doubled in the 
past decade to 14,000.

These statistics contrast sharply with the picture painted by the United 
Nations human development report this month, which for the second year 
running concluded that life expectancy, education and healthcare in Norway 
were better than anywhere else.

One explanation for the high death rate is the injection culture. "Contrary 
to many other countries Norwegian drug addicts inject themselves with 
heroin rather than smoke it," says Ketil Bentzen, who is deputy director 
general of the ministry of social affairs. "Nor do they take it on its own. 
They mix it with pills such as Rohypnol and alcohol, and that is deadly," 
he adds.

Even though the possession, use and trafficking of drugs are illegal and 
punishable by a maximum prison term of 21 years, the drug scene in Oslo is 
startlingly open. A hotdog kiosk near to Oslo's central station is the 
focal point for addicts and pushers. An estimated 500 to 600 people visit 
it every day. The addicts, whose emaciated faces poke out from hooded tops, 
look like the tortured Norwegians depicted by Edvard Munch in his paintings.

"It's like something out of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables," says Trym 
Skarra, a city council social worker.

Mr Bentzen is philosophical about the future. "It's not difficult to detox 
an addict," he says. "The real challenge is to find something with which to 
replace their addiction, and the government is unable to distribute the 
meaning of life."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom