The History Of Drugs In Sweden

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Knowing and understanding the history of drugs in Sweden is important to understand the current policy that is in place. Sweden was one of the first Western European countries to experience a major drug epidemic in the 1960’s (Johannson). During that time the drugs were mostly stimulants and, at the time, not seen as addictive so people were able to purchase these drugs at local pharmacies with regulations. After some regulation problems began to occur. There was a trial set up with 110 drug-addicted patients that last from 1965 to 1967. During the treating program, the patients were able to purchase as many drugs as they wanted and or needed, all 110 patients purchased over 4 million drugs combined over the course of the two year period (Johannson), …show more content…
After the prosperous time that Sweden had during the 70’s and then the 80’s, what followed in the 90’s was considered the Dark Age because of an economic decline that caused government to completely change its focus to other issues. As a result drug policy was overlooked and drug treatment for those with health problems became harder to obtain (Johansson, 3). This was easy to happen because even though Sweden does provide treatment for those in need of help, the biggest priority is the criminalization of all drug uses and …show more content…
Instead there is a focus on the hard drugs in the underground sector, rather then focus on individuals who are not abusing drugs have a health problem rather then focus on the criminal aspect of using drugs. The distinction between hard and soft drugs has led to a normalization of soft drugs similar to alcohol or other legal substances. “Since the 1970s, the use and sale of small amounts of cannabis has been tolerated in the Netherlands under the principle of expediency, which designates that while the sale and possession of cannabis remain illegal, it is never in the public interest to prosecute where relatively small amounts are concerned” (Chatwin,

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