Pubdate: Fri, 04 Jul 2003
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2003 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209
Author: Paul Waugh

SWEDEN TAKES LEAD ON DRUG LAWS

DESPITE ITS liberal image, Sweden has some of the toughest drug policies in 
the world.

Its zero-tolerance approach began more than 35 years ago precisely because 
the country realised that a more relaxed attitude had failed. In the 1960s, 
amphetamines were decriminalised, enabling doctors to prescribe them to 
addicts. Drug use soared from a couple of hundred addicts to 2,000-3,000 
within a couple of years. The Government decided in 1966 to treat all drugs 
equally, from cannabis to heroin, under a single law. Stop and search laws 
were introduced to allow police to stop people they suspected of consuming 
drugs and officers could 0enforce compulsory urine and blood tests.

But while the means of catching users is severe, its treatment of them 
emphasises rehabilitation rather than inprisonment as a solution. 
Persistent offenders are sent for mandatory treatment and drug education 
for schoolchildren is compulsory.

The Tories have been most impressed by recent figures which reveal a mere 9 
per cent of Swedes had tried drugs, compared with 34 per cent who had tried 
them in the UK. However, the party's emphasis on residential-based 
treatment, with addicts sent to specialist clinics run by community groups 
and charities, is not in line with the Swedish experience, critics claim.

John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, said the Swedes concentrate instead on 
treating heroin addicts with a drug substitute at their GPs' surgery and 
they are then given rehabilitation help in the community to get them back 
into work.

Mr Mann, who published a report into drugs in his mining constituency last 
year, also said he discovered that many residential units for young people 
in Sweden were closing down because they are deemed not to be cost effective.

"Mr Duncan Smith is talking nonsense. He has gone to Sweden and heard them 
talk about rehabilitation and assumed that means residential centres but it 
does not," he said.

"The idea of sending young people to centres in the country is an old, old 
idea. It is not the way to treat heroin addiction for a start."
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