Questioning the unquestionable: A normative study of the values, argumentation and logic of the Swedish drug policy

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Questioning the unquestionable:

A normative study of the values, argumentation, and logic of the Swedish drug policy

By: Alexander Carmler

Supervisor: Dr. Simon Birnbaum

Södertörn University | School of Social Sciences Master’s dissertation 30 credits

Spring semester 2021

(Political Science, Master’s Programme)

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Abstract

Sweden’s drug policy still invokes the ideas of zero-tolerance and prohibition despite the high reported number of drug-related deaths and arrest rates for using drugs in Sweden in the latest years. To reach knowledge about why prohibition of illegal drugs has remained such a strong staple of Swedish politics for the latest 60 years, this study asks questions about which ideas and arguments constituting the Swedish drug policy, examines the logical coherence of these, and proposes an alternative policy route which aims to mitigate the shortcomings of the current policy. The drug policy field is extensive and studies from different nations show that drug policies that move away from prohibitionist ideas have succeeded in both reducing drug-related mortality rates and reducing the stigma that is attached to either using or abusing psychoactive drugs. Because of an identified unclarity of why the prohibitionary ideas in Sweden have remained despite recent developments, this study aims to fill a gap in existing research by normatively analyzing the ideas in the policy. Since these ideas have great importance in restrictions of individual liberty and public health considerations, knowledge about them is essential to create because liberty and public health are fundamental aspects in any democratic society. The research endeavor performs an internal validity check as the methodological approach to check the internal logic and arguments of the policy and uses a theory of liberty to shed light on the trade-offs between liberty and public health. What is discovered is that the Swedish drug policy builds on inconsistent arguments and incoherent logic and has a moralizing intent that allows for restrictions on individual liberty to reach a utopian vision of a drug-free society. Also, this study shows that it is possible to create a policy that can mitigate the harms caused by the current by adhering to the principle that individual liberty should stretch as far as possible when no harm is caused to another. The implications of this are that it will be harder to justify the zero-tolerance approach in the future and that future policy must look to other policy approaches rather than build policy on assumptions based on outdated moralism.

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Carmler Contents 2

Hedvig for all the support and love you provide. Also, thank you to all my friends who always support me and have been missed and thought about dearly while I have been locked up in my writing room. Special thanks to Dr. Simon Birnbaum who has been my guide throughout the process and whom I could not have done this without.

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Carmler Introduction 4

1. Introduction

Psychoactive drugs such as Opium or Cannabis have been used by human beings since ancient times to medicate, get recreationally intoxicated, but also to attain spiritual and cultural understanding, there is even evidence that suggests that they might have inspired initial human religious experiences (Merlin, 2003, p.295). A controversial idea to consider for sure, but interesting insight into the longevity of human use of psychoactive drugs. The modern use of psychoactive substances falls on a wide spectrum, religious, medical, cultural, or recreational, but the modern-day application of these substances is generally not so closely intertwined with the ritualistic or religious use as in ancient times (Merlin, 2003, p.296). A widely held political conception during the latter part of the 20^th century has been that certain drugs, generally all identifiable except alcohol and tobacco, are so harmful to the fabric of society that they need to be banned, and the users of these drugs ostracized from ‘regular’

society. For instance, the aptly named “War on Drugs”-campaign, implemented globally and spearheaded by the federal government of the U.S.A since the Nixon Administration 1971, an administration which declared drug abuse as “public enemy number one” (Nixon, 1971). The global “war” on drugs can be seen as an attempt at forcefully reducing illegal drug trade and consumption in the United States and worldwide. This war-on-drugs-rhetoric became most salient during the latter half of the 20^th century, however prohibitionist attitudes to

psychoactive drug consumption can be traced back to the formal prohibition of Alcohol and other intoxicants under Islamic Sharia law stemming from passages of the Quran dating back to the 7^th century (Michalak & Trocki, 2006). Most prevalent as a political idea in the 20^th and 21^st century, psychoactive drug prohibition is not an inherently American, or Western imagining, as may be thought when only looking at a latter couple of centuries. Around 500 years after Siam (Current Thailand) first prohibited the smoking of Opium, the first state law in America prohibited it (Windle, 2013, p.1194). Thus, the question of how to deal with drug use has been on the minds of rulers and politicians throughout history.

In contemporary politics, ideas fall on a spectrum ranging from libertarian views considering drug use to be an issue only concerning the individuals using them, not to be regulated whatsoever by the state, to extremists on the other side such as President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte which administration has enabled law enforcement to be able to shoot suspected drug users and drug dealers on sight, or if they are ‘spared’ thrown in overcrowded

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prisons with “disgraceful conditions” (Ghiabi, 2018, pp.209-210). Regardless of where on this spectrum drug policy ideas fall, extreme means such as in the case of the Philippines are arguably not fitting in a state claiming to respect a contemporary understanding of human rights and leaving the issue out of politics altogether cannot arguably be seen as a reasonable stance from governments due to the negative consequences drug use can have on individuals and society. Generally, drug policy and drug laws have the effect of producing violence from the state, due to the enforcement of the law by the state carrying the monopoly on violence, towards those labeled as addicts and criminal organizations dealing drugs, organizations which deal drugs because of the profits to be gained of the illegal substance, and in turn, these criminal organizations produce violence to maintain their highly profitable markets, a salient fact which is arguably one of the stronger arguments of enforcing certain drug laws to maintain public safety and liberty. The labeling of individuals using drugs as drug addicts is often caricatured by states to mean anyone using illegal drugs (Ghiabi, 2018, p.210),

regardless of their rate of use or quantity of drugs used, but for example, in Portugal, distinctions are made between problematic- and non-problematic use (EMCDDA, 2015, p.14), whereas in Swedish policy, which will be the main focus of this dissertation, any use, as well as being under the influence of an illegal drug, is seen as problematic and a criminal offense (SFS 1968:64).

The focus of this dissertation on the ideas of the Swedish drug policy, where any use of an illegal substance is punishable by law (SFS 1968:64), is because of a perceived unclarity of the logic behind it. It is a policy worth studying closer because of the extreme drug-induced mortality rate in Sweden (EMCDDA, 2019) and the question of why a zero-tolerance policy remains in place when alternatives are available. But perhaps most importantly, the question of which ideas and arguments that the policy is based on and if they are logical and

consistent. The ideas that lay the ground for the current policy will be investigated by an internal validity check looking at the internal consistency and logic of argumentation in policy (Badersten, 2004, p.215). Practically this will be done first by researching which ideas that come through and matter in the policy area, and second by applying a theory of liberty based on Mill (1864) to see what the implications are by approaching and investigating the field with a normative political theory of liberty as opposed to for example other political-, public health- or criminal theoretic perspectives. Further, the study will seek to investigate alternatives to the current policy based on a methodological framework by Wright (2010) together with Mill’s (1864) theory on liberty, to find a theoretical and empirical basis for

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constructing a new policy framework that is logically consistent and eliminates the harms identified in the current.

When discussing drugs in the Swedish context, the term “narcotics” is referring to all illicit psychoactive substances (Goldberg, 2004, p.552). A trait of the Swedish drug policy, what Goldberg (2004, p.552) calls “perhaps the key postulate” of it, is that people using

psychoactive substances are considered to be chemically controlled in the manner of their individual willpower and ability to make rational decisions being suppressed by the

biochemical properties of the narcotic drug they are using. Because of the view of the drug user as a passive object, reacting to the effects of the drugs they are using, rather than an active subject aiming to reach personal goals, the policy has been shaped with an effort to control drug users by forcing them not to use illicit drugs, instead of communicating with them, which is considered futile unless the individual is not using drugs, why treatment programs in Sweden traditionally have had it as a prerequisite to be drug-free to qualify (Goldberg, 2004, p.552). Legal psychoactive drugs in Sweden such as tobacco and alcohol are regulated by the state, in the case of alcohol what can be deemed as harm-reduction measures have influenced policy during the greater part of the 20^th century because alcohol was seen as impossible to eliminate from society why harm-reduction policies regarding the use of it were seen as viable (Goldberg, 2004, p.553-554). Narcotics on the other hand are seen as much more dangerous than alcohol, and much more likely for individuals to become biochemically addicted and dependent to, why much effort has been made politically to create and enforce norms ensuring other psychoactive drugs are kept out of Swedish society (Goldberg, 2004, p.557). Comparatively, the evidence points to tobacco- and alcohol use having the potential of more physical harm and more risk for dependence than illegal drugs such as cannabis, LSD, or MDMA/Ecstacy, with heroin and cocaine being the most harmful substances (Nutt et al., 2007, pp.1050-1052). When measuring which drugs are most harmful to individuals as well as harmful to others, alcohol is the most harmful drug when both categories are weighed together (Nutt et al., 2010, pp.1560-1561).

The idea that certain drugs needed to be kept out of the country was formed with the ideas that drugs were a danger for the individuals consuming them, as well as a threat to the fabric of society and the specific equity centered welfare state and ‘people’s home’ or ‘folkhem’, demanding diligent workers with self-control, therefore sobriety as an ideal was woven into the political vision of a better society (Goldberg, 2004, p.555). It is only of late where the

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zero-tolerance prohibitionist drug policy of Sweden has been questioned more publicly for several reasons such as the number of drug-induced deaths being relatively high in a

European context (EMCDDA, 2019), and debate around the ethics and logic of the policy has emerged. Also, around the world policies of decriminalization and legalization have been implemented in many countries and territories such as Portugal, where the use of all drugs is decriminalized and where the evidence points to a reduction of problematic use (Hughes &

Stevens, 2010, p.999). Or more recently the state of Colorado, U.S.A, where the legalization of cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes has, as of the time of writing this, arguably not yet caused the fabric of society to crumble. Rather it is “highly likely” that legalization has had a positive effect on local and state resources (Zambiasi & Stillman, 2020, p.678), which in turn could be used for addiction treatment measures or other harm reduction purposes. As times change and international alternatives for drug policy shed light on

different ways to deal with this difficult, controversial, and for many highly personal issues, Sweden’s zero-tolerance approach, and especially the ideas that lie behind it, becomes an interesting area to be studied normatively. Since there is a perceived unclarity of the logic behind why ideas about criminalization of intoxication, limiting individual liberty to benefit the people’s health, zero-tolerance and equating use with abuse take precedent in the drug policy. It is with these intriguing insights from the policy that is and has been, in Sweden and the practical application of other policy modes in other nations, that this dissertation will seek to examine the values and arguments behind the current drug policy of Sweden and

investigate if it is possible to provide an alternative drug policy for Sweden.

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Carmler Research problem and research questions 8

2. Research problem and guiding research questions

Sweden’s drug-induced mortality rate was 92 deaths per million in 2017, almost five times the European average of just above 20 deaths per million (EMCDDA, 2019). Important to note is the supposed wide margin for error in comparing countries, as the statistics above are dealing with a highly stigmatized phenomenon, and there being systematic under-reporting in some countries (EMCDDA, 2019). However, with the case of Sweden being an outlier, this acts as one motivator for this study as it begins with asking the question of why the Swedish traditionalist policy path of prohibition regarding narcotic drugs has remained entrenched. In a nation where the standard of living is comparatively high, ranking high on quantitative measuring indexes regarding the standard of living, quality of life, health, and income- as well as other inequalities (UNDP, 2020), one might find it odd that the drug-induced

mortality rate is so comparatively high. Not only can this be considered as strange regarding the extensive welfare state in Sweden with universal coverage, but policy-wise as well where Sweden continues to follow a zero-tolerance, prohibitionist policy regarding psychoactive drugs where alternatives in other nations have yielded positive results when it comes to reducing mortality. Not only is the drug-induced mortality rate high, but the number of reported offenses due to personal use of drugs has increased by 39 percent in the latest decade, with almost half of the around 120.000 reported drug offenses being in the category of personal use in 2020 (BRÅ, 2021). This is intriguing not only because of the perceived mortality problem and the expected capacity of the welfare state to handle such a problem but because nearly 60.000 individuals were prosecuted with having an illegal drug in their body, an act that is rare to be a criminal offense in other democratic countries (SVT, 2020). Perhaps what is most perplexing in this specific policy is that Sweden continues on the same policy route when there is evidence suggesting that zero-tolerance policies may not minimize consumption (Caulkins, 1993, p.473) and that harm reduction policies, aiming at limiting the damage caused to individuals and society by psychoactive drug use by not viewing those using as legal subjects to be prosecuted, can be successful in minimizing harm to the users themselves and others (Tucker, 1999). In addition to this, when other Nordic countries such as Iceland (Pearson, 2021) propose decriminalizing personal drug use by adults, and in Norway, the decriminalization of the personal use of psychoactive drugs has been lifted in parliament during 2021 (SVT, 2021), Swedish prohibition remains. Important to note as well is that when government officials are asked about possible policy changes, as when Minister

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for Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren (Social Democrat) was asked by the media about a suggestion from the Public Health Agency of Sweden to investigate the ban on using drugs, there is an unwillingness to even engage in a discussion about the suggestion as the quote below highlights:

“How important is it to listen to what the Public Health Agency says? – I think you’re posing that question in a loosely formulated way, it obviously depends entirely on what you’re aiming for.” –Minister for Health and Social Affairs Lena Hallengren (Social Democrat).

(SVT, 2020)

We will get back to the aspect of the public- and political climate of discussing the policy later, since it is an interesting theoretical aspect.

2.1 Research questions

So why has Sweden not attempted changes to its policy in the light of other European countries such as Portugal, The Netherlands, Iceland, and Spain, amongst others, where the change from prohibition regarding narcotic drugs to different policies of legalization or decriminalization have taken place? What is the rationale for maintaining the current policy as the drug-induced mortality rate is at such a comparatively high level? And most

importantly, what is the logic behind the policy and the ideas and values that make it up. In boiling this down as research questions for this study, we will ask the following:

1. What are the values, logic, and value-hierarchy within the Swedish drug policy?

2. Is the argumentation behind the Swedish drug policy logically coherent?

3. What is needed to provide a policy alternative that is more logically coherent and eliminates identifiable harms and injustices of the current drug policy?

Liberty as a normative concept has different interpretations, therefore it is necessary to disclaim that Mill’s (1864) theory of liberty is used not because it should be taken as absolute truth. Rather, it is used because of the importance it holds in the political science tradition and the theoretical usefulness of it as it cuts to the core of where one individual’s liberty ends and the next begins, what this dissertation considers the fundamental question in drug policy

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because of drug policies inherent demarcation of how far an individual’s freedom to their own body extends and the restrictions that are placed upon it based on other values. It is the theoretical and practical tensions between the two sides of the ‘liberty coin’ that lie at the heart of the issue, which we will return to later.

In critically analyzing the case of Sweden with these guiding research questions, this study aims to use the field of normative political science to create knowledge about the logic behind the ideas and values constituting the Swedish drug policy, and normatively, i.e., based on Mill’s (1864) theory of liberty, develop certain policy suggestions which are logically coherent as well as desirable, viable, and achievable in the Swedish context. By approaching the issue with the help of these research questions and this aim, the study will also seek to provide a basis for future work to continually question and think critically about the ideas that form this policy issue, and other side issues surrounding the policy. Contributing to a

tradition of scientific courage in examining controversial questions such as this, that are not only questions about liberty and inherent logics of policy but in this case actual life and death. Thus, in lifting this controversial issue out of the characteristics of dogmatic

stigmatization and entrenchment and providing for constructive criticism of ideas and values based on a normative method and normative principles, the study can also inform future political science, policy makers, and suggest future policy alternatives.

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Carmler Previous research 11

3. Previous Research

The academic field of drug policy contains a wide berth of literature within several different scientific areas such as political-, criminal-, health- sociological-, and economical science, to name a few. Although drug policy can be interpreted as simply the government’s regulation of substances, insights from for example health studies can help to illuminate the study of political ideas, and vice versa. It is with this open approach, although written in-, and focused within the discipline of normative political science, that this study does not shy away from drawing lessons from other academic subjects when they have implications on politics and political ideas. As such, a brief overview of the research field is presented here.

Around the start of the 20^th century, drugs and drug use became studied more frequently by governments, and as early as 1894 the British studied the “marijuana problem” in India. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report (1894), suggested that cannabis should be regulated and taxed rather than prohibited due to both political and practical reasons, the political being that the use of cannabis was a widely accepted cultural practice, a concern that users would turn to more harmful drugs such as alcohol or opium, as well as a concern for individual liberty based on Mill’s (1864, p.10) harm principle insisting that governments cannot stop individuals because they are only harming themselves, the practical reasons were tied to the fact that cannabis grew wild, increasing the likelihood of prohibition creating an illicit market (Hall, 2019, pp. 1681-1682). Although the study was wide and impressive in size, it has been noted that the British commissioners could have had a conflict of interest due to them being paid employees of the Government of India, interested in the revenue from regulation (Mills, 2009, In: Hall, 2019, p.1681). Moving further into the 20^th century and to the United States, The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs (Brecher & eds., 1972) is arguably a book that provides a fundamental and comprehensive introduction to the subject of drugs and the drug issue in society and politics. In the report, which is so vast it is difficult providing for complete coverage here, conclusions drawn include inefficiency of prohibition due to price raises attracting more entrepreneurs to the black market and false confidence that nothing more needs to be done in the issue except for passing new laws and hiring more narcotics agents, sensationalist anti-drug campaigns being ineffective and counterproductive, also the intent to deter people from using drugs by policy has made policies as damaging as possible when loss of employment, expulsion from school, and exclusion from society has

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been the effect, rather than seek to minimize the damage done by drugs (Brecher & eds.,

1972, pp.521-527).

More recent studies such as Cohen’s (1993), which delve more into the ideology of drug prohibition in the United States and identifies three misunderstandings behind it. First, it is a mistake to assume a simplistic causal connection between drug use and poverty, abuse can aggravate a harsh situation for an individual, but a harsh situation can also be a source of abuse. Second, it is faulty to assume that states can outlaw the desire for drugs, and

mitigation of negative effects should instead be the approach. Third, and what Cohen (1993) calls probably the most fundamental mistake of all, is the misunderstanding that certain drugs can be controlled by humans and others not, drug use of illegal drugs become equated with abuse, and false generalizations based on problematic users together with prejudice become

“truth” (Cohen, 1993). As with Cohen (1993), a large part of the more modern academic literature deals with the issue at a somewhat pragmatic level, freer to explore ideas such as harm reduction, decriminalization, or legalization without the ideological shackles of

contemporary mainstream politics. Within economics, studies such as Clark (2003, pp.24-29) show that one can predict with the help of a model that legalization of certain drugs, in this case, cannabis and cocaine, when offered at a price low enough to stamp out the illegal market, could have the potential to raise social welfare. Within contemporary political science, many studies around drug policy have defined issues with drug prohibition and looked at how policy can be shifted. For example, Scherlen (2012, p.67, 72) combines theories of policy termination and prospect theory to explain the longevity of the drug war, with conclusions that U.S politicians prefer a status quo to the risks of policy termination when opinion and public framing about drugs are negative, even when a policy is an apparent failure. Monaghan (2008) studied the Labor government which assumed power in the U.K in 1997 and investigated the party’s signaling intent to implement evidence-based policies and the actual outcome of the drug legislation policy becoming evidence-based only in part, where the evidence used is cherry-picked “in line with the policy preferences of powerful individuals and groups” (pp. 148-149). Ritter (2009) shows how regulatory theory can offer other policy modes than prevention and law enforcement such as strong consumer

movements having “potential to significantly reduce the harms from illicit drug use” (p. 268).

Another one of Ritter’s (2009, p.269) conclusions is that a feature of illicit drug policy scholarship is an absence of a theoretical framework, motivating the use of regulatory theory

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in her case. We will keep this insight in mind as a theoretical framework will be presented later in this study, albeit not as institutionally oriented, rather normatively.

Normative research in the drug policy area remains scarce, however, studies are touching upon normative aspects in the research area. Christie, Groarke & Sweet (2007, p.55) examine ethics in the harm reduction debate and touch upon Mill’s (1864) harm principle and consider Mill’s (1864) view to have been that the state can interfere with an individual’s liberty if the individual’s drug use would lead to harmful consequences for society, but if an individual could use a substance without harming society no state intervention could be justified. Barrett (2010, pp.141-142) has examined the international drug control system and address the normative challenges human rights pose to the drug control system because of the higher risks of human rights abuses within it, abuses that are carried out by enforcing drug control treaties and challenged by human rights in international law and treaties.

Swedish drug policy in the scientific literature does not seem to be as widely studied as policies in other nations, although there are a few interesting examples. Unfortunately, few normative studies of the Swedish drug policy could be found in the research work for this study. Fortunately, this acts as another justification for performing a normative study on the ideas constituting the policy. Studies of the Swedish drug policy include Edman & Olsson (2014, pp.522-524) who examined the dominant concepts used to portray the Swedish drug problem finding that a social, non-medical, problem description has held, and still hold a strong place in Swedish policy with it being a basis for the paternalistic and coercive

treatment of individual’s drug consumption. Goldberg (2021) looks at the theoretical basis of the Swedish drug policy model and find that it consists of a biochemical view of drugs considering individuals to lose control over behavior when using drugs, a stepping-stone hypothesis where experimental narcotic use is considered to lead individuals to lose control and use more potent drugs, and the presumption that non-medical narcotic use is abuse.

The delimited area of the Swedish drug policy is arguably normatively understudied which opens for normative political science to enter with new perspectives about the actual values and argumentation behind the policy to create new knowledge. How this will be performed will be addressed after the discussion about the material in the next chapter.

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Carmler Material 14

4. Material

For this dissertation, the Swedish drug policy is seen as the application of the law surrounding narcotic drugs. However, since we are interested in the ideas, values, and argumentation that lie behind and have shaped the policy, there is a necessity to engage with material influencing the law as it stands. The first part in deducting the ideas behind the drug policy will be to look at the ideas that the government mediates today in its overarching ANDT-policy (Alcohol, Narcotics, Doping, and Tobacco). Within it, references to narcotic drugs will be looked at. Since the current ANDT-policy builds upon policies dating back roughly a decade, the first installation in what is called the ANDT-policy will also be screened for references to narcotic drugs since it arguably is the foundation for the

contemporary way this policy issue is shaped. Since the references to narcotic drugs within these ANDT-policy statements are quite slim and only touch on the surface of what can be called a mediation of ideas and values and carry low levels of argumentation, these alone cannot be seen to represent the ideas of the drug policy. Since the drug policy of today builds on ideas dating back to the 1960s and the first implementation of the prohibition against narcotic drugs in the Narcotic Drugs Punishment Act (SFS 1968:64), what is of great interest for understanding these ideas would be the preparatory work behind its implementation (Prop. 1968:7). In this proposition values, ideas, and argumentation comes through in a manner that allows for a thorough examination of them.

An obvious objection to the idea of examining the drug policy of Sweden of today with documents from the government of the 1960s is that they are old and dated and that the ideas of old could have been replaced by new. It is a fair objection but in examining the field of the Swedish drug policy, prohibition of narcotic drugs has been implemented since the law changed in 1968 and the ideas that laid to the ground for prohibition then, are still being mediated by the government. Therefore, to attempt to grasp, understand, examine, and check the validity of these ideas it is a necessity to go back and examine the original proposal. Of course, if different ideas would emerge by looking at contemporary documents, these would be seen as more representative of the drug policy as it is. However, since little has arguably been changed in the argumentation and ideas surrounding narcotic drugs since the 1960s, except for the criminalization of being under the influence of narcotic drugs in 1988 (Prop.

1987/88:71), this preparatory work takes precedence when examining the ideas behind the

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Carmler Material 15

policy and will therefore be the main focal point for the examination of the ideas constituting the Swedish drug policy.

Regarding the additional motive of creating an alternative for future policy, empirical sources will be examined to construct a policy framework that balances the idea of liberty as

described by Mill (1864) with the criteria of desirability, viability, and achievability as described by Wright (2010). The empirical sources will be gathered by researching mainly academic articles that deal with the subject of drug policy, evidence from different policy applications in other countries, as well as theoretical and practical aspects of various ideas that could constitute a policy that values the evidence that exists from the concept of liberty.

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Carmler Method 16

5. Method

Inspired by the framework developed by Eric Olin Wright in Envisioning Real Utopias (2010), this dissertation builds on lessons drawn from the field of what Wright (2010) calls emancipatory social science. Wright’s book deals specifically with how to implement

successful ‘grand designs’ coming from a radical left socialist tradition and Wright mentions the “belief in the possibility of radical alternatives to existing institutions” (2010, p.6) as being an important factor in contemporary political life. There is a good argument to the idea that believing something can be done will serve as a foundation for many great innovations, technical as well as intellectual, many leaps forward were inspired by individuals with a belief in them being right based on the information they had even when in a minority and persecuted for said belief, think of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) who was sentenced for heresy by the church when suggesting the earth may not be in the center of the universe. The case of Galileo has inspired scientific thought in the way of being radical and never letting ideas be final, one should always be prepared to challenge one’s thoughts when provided with alternative perspectives and this is arguably true for social science in itself, one should not discard ideas that seem too far-fetched, rather attempt to understand their theoretical dimensions and work with them to see what knowledge might be useful for understanding and criticizing the policy, and what may not. However radical one could and should be in theory, simple belief in political change must only be considered a starting point for

intellectual development, a way to spark interest and engage with an issue. Within political science, approaching a policy issue with a political scientific method must necessarily evolve out of this initial belief and be theoretically and methodologically stringent to create useful knowledge of good quality. It is with this caution in mind that this study defines the boundary of its aims to investigate the theoretical dimensions of-, and alternatives to, existing ideas in a single policy field by a single state, thereby not necessarily engaging in grand utopian visions but aiming at political scientific usefulness first by engaging with theory, method, and

material, with an added real-world usefulness of the insights and results produced.

We have thus established that social- and political science can be used as an investigative tool to, on the one hand, examine existing political ideas and values, on the other hand also

provide alternatives to them. In attempting to evaluate policies and provide alternatives to them, this will by necessity means that the study will have to deal with value issues, or

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Carmler Method 17

normative issues, issues about what is right or wrong, and when formulating alternatives to existing policy suggest how they should be shaped. The issue of whether political science can, and should, deal with value issues provides for further argumentation because of the perceived dichotomy between science and values. Value systems or specific opinions do not have to be evidence-based to carry weight in the real world, normative political science on the other hand can approach this scientifically by the method used. The normative branch of political science can be justified as a method because of politics itself being a ‘value

business, political scientists coming from an analytical perspective must then be able to argue for, or against, certain political measures based on a systematic and clarifying way of

engaging with theory and empirical material (Badersten & Gustavsson, 2010, p.123). More specifically and situating this study in a normative-scientific tradition, a normative analysis can be made in the shape of a ‘given-that analysis’, or an ‘applied normative analysis’, that is not so much about forming a value-based opinion on a matter, rather as neutrally as possible problematizing around questions relating to how things should be based on a normative premise, the ‘given-that’-perspective (Badersten & Gustavsson, 2010, p. 126). For example, given that every human has the right to privacy, should drug use in the home be allowed? Or, given that every human has the right to not be influenced negatively by another person’s use of drugs, should drug users proven to infringe on other people’s liberty in some way be incarcerated or be dealt with other types of punishments, if so, which? Depending on the normative assumptions about liberty and privacy one starts from, the answers will most likely be different, but we will return to this subject later. An evolution-, or perhaps a subcategory, of a ‘given-that analysis’, is what Badersten & Gustavsson (2010) calls, freely translated, a

‘feasibility analysis’ which according to the authors can be thought of as a kind of evaluation analysis where different value statements can be tested to see if they are possible to

practically realize given the circumstances (p.129). Both the given-that-perspective and the concept of feasibility analysis is encompassed in what Badersten (2004, p.215) calls an internal validity check which consists of two moments with specific questions:

1. An examination of the way the value that is studied is defined and specified.

 Are the values that form the basis of the analysis clearly specified and clearly expressed?

 Is the value-hierarchy that is established clearly defined?

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Carmler Method 18

 Are the value conflicts, if present, presented in a clear, precise, and clarifying way?

2. An examination of the inner consistency of the argumentation as a whole.

 Is the analysis argumentative whatsoever, i.e., are reasons provided for positions taken?

 Is the argumentation logically coherent?

 Is the argumentation consequently shaped and consistent in its parts or are there internal contradictions?

 Are all stages of the argumentation included?

 Are conclusions drawn clearly specified and do they follow logically to the premises given?

 Are any of the premises undue?

 Are the conclusions misguided in any respect?

(Badersten, 2004, p.215)

The internal validity check thus tests the values and ideas it is performed on. There can be no unclarities to what is being justified, how it is justified, what conclusions are drawn, and how the argumentation has reached said conclusions, according to Badersten (2004, p.215) it is basically about mediating intersubjectivity in the normative analysis, meaning that claims and reasoning about value issues can not only have private and arbitrary meaning.

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Carmler Theory 19

6. Theory

Beginning with the concept of Wright’s (2010) emancipatory social science, Wright specifies that it “seeks to generate scientific knowledge relevant to the collective project of challenging various forms of human oppression” (p.7), it is a type of social science because of creating systematic scientific knowledge about the world, and emancipatory in the sense of having a

“central moral purpose in the production of knowledge [which is] the elimination of oppression and the creation of the conditions for human flourishing” (p.7). It is noted by Wright (2010) that the idea of emancipation is rooted in the liberal, rights-based, value system but that the left has appropriated the term to cover a wider scope than individual freedom, adding ideals like equality and social justice as well (p.7). In this study, the central value that can serve as the ‘condition for human flourishing’ will be liberty. The reasoning for choosing liberty as the central theoretical value is not only based on that it represents the tensions between the free will of individuals to do as they please and the restraints of

individual’s liberty by the political system they find themselves in, but also because of the arguable necessity of working with specifically Swedish conceptions of liberty in political science, this because of the somewhat unique combination of the concepts of equality and liberty, a strong state with strong individualism, that has emerged most evident in Sweden but also in other Nordic Countries (Blanc-Noel, 2013, p.36). Using liberty this way in the field of the Swedish drug policy is useful as an investigative lens used to entangle existing ideas and work with them in a way that both illustrates the dimensions of the policy area and

characterizes how liberty is perceived in Swedish politics by analyzing ideas and lines of argumentation. Traditionally, and generally, liberty in a Swedish context is thought of in a manner that allows for restrictions of what could be considered individual rights for the better off of the community, for instance, state-run monopolies exist as harm-reduction measures such as the Systembolaget for alcoholic beverages, or Svenska Spel and ATG for the

gambling market. The existence of these state-run monopolies can serve as an insight into the Swedish model and political regulation of substances and/or lifestyle choices where certain vices can exist, albeit regulated by the state. Where unwanted vices, such as psychoactive drugs, are strictly forbidden based on valuations made when implementing the policy of prohibition.

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Carmler Theory 20

To specify liberty as a theoretical concept for this dissertation, we will turn to the core of the concept itself. John Stuart Mill (1864, p.7) understands Civil-, or Social Liberty as “[T]he nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the

individual.”. This conception is fundamental in understanding the tensions that exist between the well-being of society and individuals, and how different interpretations of where one’s liberty ends and the next begins can exist. Further, Mill described the “likings and dislikings of society”, or a powerful part of it, as historically being the main factor in determining the rules one should follow in a society under the law (1864, p.17). In his introductory remarks to the influential On Liberty (1859), Mill claims three basic liberties are necessary for

individuality, which for Mill preludes the ultimate good he wants to attain via his utilitarian philosophy (Mill, 1864). Utilitarianism, as a philosophy that was politically important in the 19th century for breaking down feudal, remains intellectually, for modern politics

utilitarianism is not a clear political philosophy that is relevant or useful for this dissertation, see the introductory chapter in Kymlicka’s Contemporary Political Philosophy (1995) for an excellent description of the conformist nature of modern utilitarianism. Even so, the thoughts on liberty Mill provides are arguable as vital and fundamental to an understanding of the concept as when they were written down. The same tensions between how free an individual is to pursue ideas or tastes and society’s exercise of power to limit certain practices are vivid in modern society, in Sweden and elsewhere. The three basic liberties then, according to Mill (1864, p.26-27), are as follows:

1. The liberty of thought and feeling, meaning freedom of opinion and sentiment on any subject, as well as the liberty of expressing and publishing said thoughts and feelings.

2. The liberty of tastes and pursuits, meaning the ability of the individual to shape one’s life as one wishes if it does not harm another, even if others consider the conduct to be “foolish, perverse, or wrong”.

3. The liberty of uniting, meaning freedom to unite for any purpose that does not involve bringing harm to another, if the persons uniting are of age, as well as not forced or deceived.

(Mill, 1864)

These liberties are constituting pieces of a free society according to Mill (1864), and regardless of the form of government, no society can be completely free where they do not exist absolute and unqualified (Mill, 1864, p.27). Mill conceived these liberties as necessary

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Carmler Theory 21

for individual enlightenment and self-fulfillment and his words have since they were published acted as guard dogs against powers within society aiming for more “power of society over the individual” (1864, p.29). The moral conviction of Mill’s views on liberty was arguably in many regards in reaction to the imposing of rules and structures on individuals by arbitrary rulers, whether aristocratic or political such, indeed as Mill states (1864, p. 29-30), some of the best and worst feelings of human nature lie at the bottom of imposing rules on others. It is arguably then the moral conviction of an understanding of individualistic liberty to provide the intellectual ground for political freedom from arbitrary influence as well as totalitarian and authoritarian ideas and ideologies.

From this theory on liberty, it is possible to extrapolate a theoretical framework of liberty suitable for this study. All three of the liberties described by Mill (1864) will serve as useful for a complete understanding of the policy field, but it is the second basic liberty that helps us unravel on a theoretical axis how valuations about individual liberty and harm are made and justified. The first liberty, let’s call it the free speech liberty, applies as a useful indicator of surveying the ideological landscape surrounding drug policy, who gets to make suggestions about policy and why, as well as who does not. The second liberty, which we can call the liberty of action, is, as we discussed above, the most salient since it deals in the demarcation of where one’s liberty to act comes up against other’s liberty to not be affected by the action of using said liberty. The third liberty, already aptly named the liberty of uniting, applies in the sense of looking at the possibilities of people to unite around a drug policy question that might fall outside of conformed beliefs.

The emancipatory aspect of this dissertation is because of its use of Mill more rooted in liberal rights theory than Wright (2010) is, but this also makes it useful for investigating the case of Sweden where the concept of liberty illuminates the analysis of the field of drug policy when looking at the demarcations of how far-reaching the individual liberty to pursue tastes extend, and where they might end up in conflict with other values. According to Wright (2010, p.7), any emancipatory social science will need to develop a systematic diagnosis and critique of the current state of the world, envision viable alternatives and understand the obstacles, possibilities, and dilemmas of transformation. To develop a diagnosis and critique, this study will need to investigate the arrangements within the current drug policy of Sweden that generate harm in the way of opposing the definition of freedom explained above. In envisioning viable alternatives to the current state of Swedish drug policy, this study will

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Carmler Theory 22

draw further upon Wright’s (2010) framework in using the three criteria of desirability, viability, and achievability (p.13) to evaluate different alternatives. These three criteria will now be further operationalized to assist with answering our research questions with the help of this specific liberty approach.

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Carmler Operationalization 23

7. Operationalization

To put forth a coherent and credible theory of possible alternatives to existing institutional frameworks that eliminate, or in Wright’s (2010, p.13) words “at least significantly mitigate the harms and injustices identified in the diagnosis and critique”, alternatives are

advantageously evaluated in three different criteria according to Wright, these three criteria are also set in a kind of hierarchy where not all desirable alternatives can be viable, and vice versa (2010, pp.13-14). The first criterion is desirability, meaning the normatively grounded assumption about what should be. This criterion is normative in the sense of it being freed from the constraints that will be added to viability and achievability. Indeed, as Wright (2010, p. 14) reasons, these types of desirability-discussions seem “very thin” in the meaning that they emphasize the working out of abstract principles, rather than real-world institutional design. However, the theoretical grounding of what is desirable, in this study some type of liberty, do much in realizing and clarifying the theoretical ground of the current drug policy and a possible alternative to it, but less in transforming institutional frameworks or practical application of policy (Wright, 2010, p.14). The second criterion is viability, according to Wright (2010, p.14), this is touching on the emancipatory aspect of social science which we discussed earlier in the sense that it seeks proposals of viable alternatives to exiting

institutional and social structures that, if they are implemented can create, “in a sustainable and robust manner” (p.14), the emancipatory consequences that were suggested in the policy proposal. As noted by Wright (2010, p.14), radical proposals to existing institutions can often have “perverse” unintended consequences, such as central planning of the economy which face both the information problem as described by Hayek (1945) and incentive problems.

Further, the viability of a new institutional design with emancipatory aspects can depend heavily on both historical context and other side conditions, this entails that a viability discussion should include a consideration of the “conditions-of-possibility” for any design to operate well (Wright, 2010, p.15).

The discussion of viable alternatives undoubtedly leads to the question of their actual

practical achievability in the real world, many different theoretical alternatives can be thought out but have little to no effect on a policy if they are not achievable (Wright, 2010, p.15), but before we turn to the concept of achievability Wright (2010, p.15-16) also makes the point that there is important to have a clear-headed and scientific understanding of the range of

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viable alternatives because of the prospect of viable alternatives turning to achievable ones when future conditions expand the limits of what can be achieved and peoples beliefs change about what sort of alternatives are viable. Fatalism does pose a problem for political change according to Wright (2010, p.16), and in the light of this wishful thinking about how the future should be which might not lead to sufficient transformation of existing institutions or policies, rather new forms of tragic oppression, a scientific approach in necessary for the development of viable alternatives. Now we turn to the third criterion for a practical work of social change, here political change in the form of policy suggestion, that of achievability.

According to Wright (2010, p.16), the central, and very difficult, the task of practical social change is developing coherent theories of achievable alternatives. It is difficult because of it also being vulnerable to wishful thinking as in the discussion about viability, but also because of the difficulties in predicting future conditions which will “affect the prospects of success of any long-term strategy” (Wright, 2010, p.16). Achievability, in the form of the possibility of implementing a said proposal of an alternative, depends on two kinds of processes

according to Wright (2010, p.16-17). The first process is the consciously pursued strategies of change and the relative power of actors who either support or oppose what alternatives are in question, the balance of power of social actors either for or against will affect the

“probability of ultimate success” in implementing alternative policy (Wright, 2010, p.16-17).

The second process is whether or not the wide range of social conditions over time can sustain the proposed strategies of change, this “trajectory of conditions” depends in part on the “cumulative unintended effects of human action” but also on the “conscious strategies of actors to transform the conditions of their own actions” (Wright, 2010, p.17). Therefore, evaluating the achievability of an alternative will need to take into consideration the possibility of creating a coherent framework of the strategy suggested, as well as take into consideration the potential of mobilizing social forces that will support the suggested policy when the right conditions for change appear (Wright, 2010, p.17).

What we can then extrapolate from the framework of Wright (2010) to fit the purposes of this dissertation are the following indicators, that, of course, carries with them a responsibility of interpretation from the author:

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1. Desirability:

 A policy that to the widest extent respects the theory of liberty inspired by Mill (1864) and put forth in this dissertation, will be regarded as desirable.

 A policy that can eliminate any logical fallacies of the current will be regarded as desirable.

 A policy that fails to live up to the theory of liberty will not be considered as desirable.

2. Viability:

 The policy which to the widest extent can be sustained over time and implement what is proposed based on the policy analysis will be deemed as most viable.

 Policies will be evaluated with the conditions of possibility kept in mind, i.e., the historical context and cultural aspects which may make a policy more-, or less possible.

3. Achievability:

 The policy’s probability of success will be evaluated by looking at the

consciously pursued strategies of change and the relative power of actors who either support or oppose what alternatives are in question.

 The policy’s ability to provide a coherent framework of change will be looked at as an indicator of its achievability.

 The conditions for change will be taken into consideration, policies may be more- or less achievable at the moment or in the future depending on the social- and political environment.

These indicators will be used together with the concept of liberty to inform what could be done to evolve the Swedish drug policy. Of course, these indicators carry with them a responsibility of interpretation and correct application for them to be used as a valid tool for performing this study. Regarding the use of Mill’s (1864) theory of liberty as a theoretical framework for examining the values of the Swedish drug policy, it is motivated by a few considerations: the question if drug use is considered an individual- or societal health issue is illuminated well by the idea of liberty to pursue tastes vis-à-vis the harm that can be done to another person because of drug use, also there is a distinct idea of individual liberty

concerning drug use described in official policy. It is stated that the Swedish view regarding

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narcotic drugs is based on an ideological view that the use of narcotic drugs is damaging to the health and therefore should not exist in a society that cares about the health of its citizens (Socialdepartementet, 2016, p.5). Since it is thought that the use of certain drugs damages the health of individuals and society, restricting the liberty to use narcotic substances is seen as a

‘balanced’ approach to policy as compared to liberal views that were more prevalent before prohibition (Socialdepartementet, 2016, p.5). The general health, or ‘people’s health’, of the population is a value that often is referred to in official policy documents, and it is clearly stated that policy regarding people’s health is based on solidarity why restrictions of personal freedom can be accepted to protect the people’s health (Skr. 2015/16:86, p.29). It is these restrictions of personal freedom, or liberty, and the valuation between it and concepts such as harm and health that motivates the idea of using Mill (1864) as a theoretical framework because of the value conflict that arises in Swedish policy between individual liberty, potential harm to others, and people’s health.

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Carmler A note on intersubjectivity 27

8. A note on intersubjectivity

To perform a normative analysis, it is essential to identify which values that the analysis aims to investigate, and it is the identification of these values that makes it possible to

problematize and construct a rational argumentation in questions about how things should be (Badersten, 2006, p.73). To frame a normative analysis in a political scientific context the values aimed to investigate need to be specified and defined, with adherence to the idea of intersubjectivity. According to Badersten (2006, pp.74-75), it is by reaching the requirement of intersubjectivity that a certain endeavor can be called scientific. The meaning of

intersubjectivity is that something is accessible knowledge-wise to more than one subject where the knowledge that is created needs to be understood by others than the author, knowledge with a common- or mutual ground: the knowledge needs to be understood by more than one person, as well as be generated by procedures and methods that are understood and are possible to be used by others (Badersten, 2006, p.75). Methodologically, to

accomplish this Badersten (2004, p.215) states three requirements, one is reproducibility meaning that the argumentation can be followed and reconstructed by someone else than the author, the second is criticizability meaning that private value judgments cannot be allowed to form the normative analysis, the third is a general adherence to objectivity in the

argumentation where only ideas or value claims that have significance on the question at hand are to be used.

Regarding this dissertation, intersubjectivity regarding the authors part in the process also requires that thought needs to be given to the way the study is affected by the authors own values or experiences in the formation of problem descriptions, choice of theory, valuation of material, and conclusions (Badersten, 2006, p.75). To check this work against arbitrary influence from personal values, thought has been given to structure it scientifically. The problem description arises from a particular societal problem regarding a comparatively high mortality rate due to drugs, as well as an unclarity behind the values and argumentation that have influenced the policy. Choosing Mill’s (1864) theory about liberty as a framework could be seen as an attempt by the author to value this certain principle over others and come to an easy conclusion arguing for liberal political principles, for instance: ‘if liberty is a value to adhere to, the conclusion must be that people should be able to inebriate without limitations’.

However, choosing the theoretical framework has rather been based on its usefulness for

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Carmler A note on intersubjectivity 28

looking into the values and argumentation of the drug policy. Prohibiting the use of narcotic drugs is a restriction of an individual’s liberty to use certain substances that are deemed as

‘too harmful’ for Swedish society concerning the general people’s health, following the conception that these drugs are more dangerous than the legal ones.

These valuations and arguments about how far liberty stretches and what could be considered as harm are encapsulated by Mill’s (1864) theory, motivating the use of it to answer the research questions. The main analytical material has been chosen by reviewing official documents to find those where values and argumentations are expressly stated, to fulfill the criteria of the method of the internal validity check. Other empirical sources have been selected based on the extensive research of books and academic papers. To avoid selection bias and cherry-picking, the empirical material used has been cross-referenced with other sources in the research process to avoid an unbalanced empirical presentation. Of course, the responsibility for this important task lies with the author, as with the responsibility to provide fair and objective conclusions. The success of these endeavors is welcome to be reviewed and criticized by any reader, as they should. The idea of testing normative principles by an

internal validity check with adherence to intersubjectivity, allows us to find a credible

normative political scientific grounding of the methodological framework this study will use.

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Carmler Analysis 29

9. Analysis: The Swedish drug policy

In this section, the legal aspects and history of the Swedish drug policy will be examined in the first and second part, the third and fourth part will, based on Mill’s (1864) theory of liberty, perform an internal validity check of the theoretical dimensions of the current policy and pose a diagnosis and critique of the current policy and provide arguments for why the policy should be changed.

9.1 Legal aspects

Since the Swedish drug policy is the main area of focus in this dissertation, a legal overview will be shortly presented here for context. Not only are there ideas and political rhetoric that coincide with the “War on Drugs”-ideas, but Sweden is also often internationally painted as a case of successful and good drug policy (UNODC, 2007). The Swedish Penal Code states in

§1 of the Narcotic Drugs Punishment Act (Narkotikastrafflagen) (SFS 1968:64) that it is a criminal offense to provide-, produce-, possess-, acquire-, process-, package-, transport-, store-, offer for sale-, connect buyers and sellers of-, use-, or handle what is labeled narcotic drugs. The penalty scale ranges from fine-inducing crimes to a maximum of ten years in jail for exceptionally serious offenses. For minor offenses, fines and jail time up to six months can be distributed, whereas the normal grade of criminal sentences come with penalties ranging from fines up to three years in jail. Offenses deemed as serious will carry a jail term ranging from two- up to seven years. In addition to fines and jail sentences, mandatory health care can be dealt with by the court together with one of the above-named fines or sentences (SFS 1968:64). The Narcotic Drugs Punishment Act (SFS 1968:64) also classifies substances regarded as narcotic drugs into five schedules, presented in a short version here:

1. Heroin, Cannabis, Psilocybin, Kat, LSD, MDMA/Ecstacy, and Ecstacy-derivates.

These substances may only be brought into the country for certain medicinal or scientific research with approval from the Swedish Medical Products Agency (Läkemedelsverket).

2. Amphetamine and similar synthetic substances with medical use, as well as Cocaine, Morphine, Methadone, GHB, and Flunitrazepam. These substances may only be

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Carmler Analysis 30

brought into the country in an amount corresponding to at most five days of personal consumption, which must be proved.

3. Codeine and Dextropropoxyphene, which turn into Morphine when consumed.

4. Benzodiazepines, except for Flunitrazepam, Barbiturates, and other sedatives. These substances may only be brought into the country in an amount corresponding to at most three weeks of personal consumption, which must be proved.

5. Dextromethorphan, Imovane, and Stilnoct. The same rules apply for Schedule 5 as for Schedule 4 substances.

(SFS 1968:64)

Drugs classed in Schedule 1 are usually not considered to have medical value. Drugs in Schedule 2-4 are considered to have medical use and require an import/export certificate for each instance of import or export. Drugs in Schedule 5 are narcotic drugs according to Swedish law but are not covered by international conventions (SFS 1968:64). This scheduling of drugs mainly concerns the legal handling of drugs (SFS 1968:64) but is important for this dissertation because it acts as an indication of how dangerous different drugs are considered to be by the state by the application of the law.

9.2 History

To understand the current state and the political environment around Sweden’s drug policy, a short historical background of drug regulation can be useful because prohibitionist attitudes have arguably influenced the Swedish culture and policymakers for a long time. The

possession, sale, and use of what is termed narcotics is strictly forbidden in Sweden, and its restrictive drug policy, which has been somewhat untouchable in the past decades, is in a historical context following a tradition of prohibiting substance use that dates to the 17^th century. Coffee, which is a central stimulating drug and very popular amongst contemporary Swedish citizens, was introduced to the nobility in the 17^th century. Since coffee was an imported good, the Swedish parliament was fearful of too much Swedish money ending up in foreign coffers, and by 1756 the drinking, and importing of coffee was forbidden, a

prohibition that continued to and fro until 1823 (Stockholm City Museum, 2013). By the 19^th century, a strong temperance movement against alcohol had broken through. In 1860, a ban against making home-brewed alcoholic spirits was put in place and the prototype of the

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Carmler Analysis 31

current state-run monopoly regulating the sale of alcohol (Systembolaget, formed 1955) was formed in 1865 in Gothenburg and was, therefore, termed the Gothenburg System although similar arrangements had existed in smaller towns across the country such as Falun and Jönköping earlier. Since 1870, all legal profits from the sale of alcohol within the country’s borders have indirectly gone to the state via state-run monopolies (Centre for Business History, 2021).

At the beginning of the 20^th century, Doctor Ivan Bratt was a central figure in the alcohol policy and was convinced that access to alcohol needed to be controlled and limited, and any remaining private for-profit businesses such as wine merchants needed to disappear. He founded the Stockholm System in 1913 and the following years, every citizen who was allowed to consume alcohol, effectively male members of the upper class or with prominent occupations, were given a booklet called the Motbok, effectively controlling and rationing the number of alcoholic beverages that could be purchased. Even though strict rationing of alcohol was put in place via the Motbok, the temperance movement which had gained ground by then advanced further demands to forbid alcohol entirely. It even sparked the first

referendum in Sweden in 1922 regarding total prohibition where the nay-vote barely won with 51%. The Motbok was not scrapped until 1955 when Systembolaget was formed by a merger of all regional monopolies and Swedes over the age of 21 could purchase alcohol without rationing (Centre for Business History, 2021). The to-be-or-not-to-be issue of alcohol in Swedish society provides insight into the salience of the regulatory tradition regarding said substance and how regulation has been approached earlier but also to the prevalence of a temperance culture that could affect attitudes toward other drugs as well.

The banning of other psychoactive drugs, labeled narcotics, was not a factor in Swedish policy until 1923 when processed opium was first targeted as a substance to be banned. By 1930, the trade of other substances such as Koka leaves, the plant from which cocaine is derived, cannabis, and other derivates of opium, were banned as well. By this time, legislators introduced the term of illegal possession, which made possession of anything regarded as a narcotic substance a crime that could be punished by fines. This evolved into prison sentences for certain circumstances regarding drug-related crime in 1933

(Narkotikaproblemet, 1967). Between 1948-1958, only 12 prosecutions regarding narcotics took place according to the Swedish Medicinal Board. Even so, the Medicinal Board stated that drug-related crime was more serious than what the statistics pointed to

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Carmler Analysis 32

(Narkotikaproblemet, 1967). A harsher line against the use of narcotics was implemented in the 1960s where, in the preparatory work for the narcotics act of 1962 (Kungl. Maj:ts prop.

184/1962, p 212), the head of the department stated that any and all measures must be taken to stifle the use of narcotics. One of those measures being the implementation of

imprisonment as the normal-grade punishment for drug-related crimes (Narkotikaproblemet, 1967). With the narcotics act of 1962 (Kungl. Maj:ts prop. 184/1962) coming into force, most substances deemed narcotics were banned, and this led to the growth of illegal trade and black markets in Sweden, substituting for the previously legal sales of substances via doctors and pharmacies (Boekhout, 1997 p. 40).

When considering the tighter restrictions being put in place at the time, there was an experiment that lasted between 1965-1967 where doctors could prescribe methadone, morphine, and amphetamine to addicts. In the experiment, the patients could themselves decide how much of the substances they would need and, in practice, self-prescribe. This led to substances being spread to people that did not take part in the experiment and when a 17- year-old girl tragically overdosed and died from drugs supplied by the experiment in April 1967, the project and its ‘liberal ideas’ was scrapped, much because of the influence of one of, if not the most significant proponent in Sweden of harsh prohibition, psychiatrist Nils Bejerot (1921-1988) (Boekhout, 1997, pp. 41-43) (Goldberg, 2004, p.558). Bejerot was a psychiatrist and is widely considered to be the ‘founding father’ of modern Swedish drug policy, with his role being transformed from what was first considered an extremist in a marginal position, to that of great influence, criticizing the ‘liberal agenda’ of non-

prohibitionist attitudes toward drugs influencing Swedish society (Boekhout, 1997, p. 45). In the years 1965-1970, Bejerot conducted a study into the relationship between drug use and drug policy. Bejerot was the supervisory medical officer at the detention center in Stockholm and focused his studies on the occurrence of injection marks found on the arms of people arrested and in custody. Bejerot believed that drug use had an epidemic and contagious character and that society’s answer to this was to pursue a restrictive drug policy containing both preventative and therapeutic methods (Boekhout, 1997, p. 44). In his evaluation of the experiment between 1965-1967, Bejerot observed an increasing percentage of intravenous users among those arrested, concluding that his hypothesis regarding the epidemic societal spread of drugs was confirmed (Bejerot, 1977, pp.101-102).

Questioning the unquestionable: A normative study of the values, argumentation and logic of the Swedish drug policy