The Drug-Free Society: Drug Politics as a Field of Struggles

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Sociologiska Institutionen

Kandidatuppsats i sociologi, 15 h.p. Ht 2018

Handledare: Daniel Ritter

The Drug-Free

Society: Drug Politics

as a Field of Struggles

A Discourse Analysis of the Drug Politics

Debate in Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens

Nyheter, 1992-2018

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Summary

New ways to deal with the drug problem seem to be emerging in western countries. Sweden, however, holds on to its strict zero tolerance approach. Within a historical perspective, this thesis aims at understanding how the Swedish drug model has

developed in this direction and remained so, even in face of changes in the international arena in the form of harm reduction measures, decriminalization of consumption and legalization of light drugs. Through a discourse analysis of the drug politics debate in the two leading Swedish Newspapers, Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Nyheter, I argue that the discourses produced in such media vehicles allow for an interpretation of the material in terms of Bourdieu’s concept of field and Foucault’s concept of discourse. The dominant players in the field defend the goal of a drug free society by using

different types of discourses, such as those that conflate the war on drugs with a defense of the nation. Although the legitimacy of their non-medical discourse is being

challenged by those who want to redefine the issue of drugs in medical terms, the dominant players’ discourse still has the power to justify their dominant positions in the field.

Keywords

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Introduction

Uruguay was the first country in the world to fully legalize the possession and use of

recreational cannabis in 2013. Canada and South Africa have followed suit. In the USA many states are adhering to the possibility of increasing their tax revenues by selling marijuana (Collins, 2018), not to mention Portugal, the first country in the world to have decriminalized the possession and use of all drugs almost 20 years ago (Ingraham, 2015). All these examples show that there is a trend in western countries towards a different way to deal with the drug problem. In Sweden, however, a relatively strict drug policy model began to take shape in 1960s, which resulted from the drug problem no longer being described as a medical and individual condition, but as a social and public concern. Since then its basic premises have remained almost unchanged (Lindgren, 1993; Olsson, 1994; Edman & Olsson, 2014). This zero-tolerance model, among other things, criminalizes consumption and does not make any distinction between light and hard drugs nor between recreational users and addicts. Its stated goal is what many consider a utopia: a drug free society (Tham, 1995).

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Purpose and Research Questions

The purpose of this thesis is to understand why the Swedish drug model is still relatively strict, given the changes occurring in the international arena. While this general question will lead the investigation, the specific questions that will contribute for answering this inquiry emerged with the analysis of the field. They are: what kinds of discourses are produced in this debate? How those discourses legitimate the player’s claim to the field? What discourses challenge those claims? How are differences constructed in the way players portray

themselves and each other? Can transformations in the field be observed in the discourses throughout the period 1992-2018?

Delimitations of the Research

The reasons motivating the choice of the time frame for this thesis are twofold. First, a proper debate between different positions is resumed only by the end of the 1990s (Goldberg, 2004). Before then, Goldberg (2004) notes, there was a self-imposed censorship in major media vehicles that preserved the zero-tolerance approach from open criticism. Second, recent research on the topic (Törnquist, 2009) is limited to the period 1970-1999, or is specifically dedicated only to the cannabis debate (Månsson, 2017). Given the limited scope of this thesis, this is not intended to be an exploration of how the field of drug politics is constituted in a broader perspective, but rather an account of one aspect of it, namely: how the discourses produced in the struggle for the field play a part in the relatively strict character of the Swedish drug politics at the same time these discourses are themselves objects of dispute.

Disposition

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Theory and Previous Literature

Theory

The theoretical framework chosen for this thesis are Bourdieu’s concept of field and

Foucault’s concept of discourse. The choice is based on the perception that drug politics is a field of its own, with disputes within it being expressed in the discourses produced in a media debate. In the following sections I will account for the concepts and explain why they are suitable for interpreting the results.

Bourdieu and the Concept of Field

Fields are delimitations of human activity that make up for what Bourdieu calls the social space. There are many fields and subfields: the cultural, the intellectual, the political etc. However, fields are not a given, external reality; they are created and maintained – or changed – precisely in the struggle for its definition. That is the way Bourdieu sees social relationships: they are characterized neither by harmony nor conflict alone, but by an interplay between the two. The boundaries of the field are a particular site for that conflict, because they are the space where gatekeepers define who belongs to it and who doesn’t. As Bourdieu puts it, a field is both a field of forces and a field of struggles, since the struggles have the purpose of either changing or preserving this very field of forces. It is actually the struggle that holds the field together in first place (Bourdieu, 1983).

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4 When the gatekeepers define what the rules of the game are, they are not only defining who belongs to the field and who doesn’t, but also determining what kind of world views are accepted as a consequence. In the political field, for example, two things are at stake: the monopoly over the “power to produce and impose the legitimate world-view” (Bourdieu, 1985: 728) and the access to “objectified political capital” (Bourdieu, 1991: 181) which could be simply translated as positions in the state administration in this case. As Bourdieu

explains it, the field has the effect of “limiting the universe of political discourse, and thereby the universe of what is politically thinkable to the finite space of discourses capable of being produced and reproduced within the limits of the political problematic (…)” (Bourdieu, 1991:172). When newcomers arrive at the field, those assumptions are exposed as arbitrary conventions. However, the participants have an interest in the permanence of the field and although they may change the rules to best suit their interests, the system of beliefs that sustain the field may not be challenged by exposition of its internal mechanisms (Bourdieu, 1983).

Foucault and the Concept of Discourse

According to Foucault (1971), the production of discourses depends on a series of rules, which allows one to speak of orders of discourse. These orders controls, selects, organizes and redistributes discourses (1971: 8) so that they are the product of constraints and limitations imposed to speech rather than free use of language. These constraints are often found in the form of disciplines, which “constitute a system of control in the production of discourse, fixing its limits through the action of an identity taking the form of a permanent reactivation of the rules” (Foucault, 1971: 17), of which medicine would be an example. This has the purpose of producing discourses within a specific framework, following principles that are known and shared by the participants in a way that the discourse becomes

autonomous through repetition and sameness. That is, its validity is not derived from who creates it, but from the rules determining its production.

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5 allowed to speak about something is to have power over the truth that can be said about it. Therefore the access to the right to use a specific discourse is controlled as to exclude those who don’t have proper qualifications for that. Consequently, discourses not only reflect the existence of conflicts, but conflicts are also motivated by them. Or, as Foucault (1971: 9) himself puts it, “speech is no mere verbalization of conflicts and systems of domination, but that it is the very object of man’s conflicts”.

Motivations for the Choice of Theory

In this thesis a choice was made for a theoretical framework that allowed the interpretation of the research material as an expression of both conflict-ridden as well as harmonic human relations. This is the case of the concepts of field and discourse. I use Bourdieu’s concept of field as the main one because it accounts for the different aspects and processes observed in the analysis of the material. Bourdieu views social structures as the objectified result of harmony and conflict within it, which makes his concept of field suitable for interpreting how these structures can be changed from inside, that is, from a struggle within the field.

Foucault’s concept of discourse is added as an auxiliary theoretical tool in first place because the method used, discourse analysis, results from his theories (Fairclough, 2003). Second, because the aspects of discourse control and limitation can be linked to Bourdieu’s ideas about legitimate views allowed in a field. Foucault does the work of connecting those aspects to the existence of scientific disciplines, which will be particularly useful in the analysis of a critical discourse observed in the material. Bourdieu, on the other hand, speaks in more general terms about legitimate views in the sense that they don’t seem to depend on the qualifications expected from a scientific discourse. Thus the combination of both approaches allows the material to be covered in its most important aspects for the purpose of explaining why the Swedish drug model is still relatively strict.

Previous Literature

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6 section, previous literature rests on the notion that the current state of affairs is rather the effect of the drug issue being redefined as a social and political problem.

As Seddon (2010) shows, to talk about drugs is to talk about how it has become such a

critical problem in an international perspective, eliciting a prohibitionist approach worldwide. In line with international developments, the 1960s represent therefore a major break in the history of how the drug issue was perceived in Sweden. There seems to be a consensus, as Törnqvist (2009) points out, that the current framing of drugs as a major social and public problem emerged during that period. Many authors also agree that such status has remained pretty much unchallenged so far (Lindgren, 1993; Olsson, 1994; Lenke & Olsson, 2002; Goldberg, 2004; Edman, 2012; Edman & Olsson, 2014; Månsson, 2017).

In order to understand how that new approach emerged in Sweden, Olsson (1994) gives an extensive account of the years preceding the breaking point. Between 1839 and 1965, medical science seized the issue by expanding the knowledge about drugs, both licit and illicit, and providing a biochemical account of addiction that settled the problem as a medical and individual one. Underpinned by the idea of addiction as a disease, medicine had the monopoly over the representation of the phenomena and, consequently, over the ways to handle it. The dominance of the medical discourse began to crumble when changes in patterns of consumption contributed to the association of drugs with certain social groups – criminals, prostitutes and marginalized young people. Olsson (1994) explains that a discourse that highlighted the association between addiction and these social groups became common place in the media and drug abuse lost its connotation as a disease, becoming quickly framed within a legal perspective. Medical doctors, who opposed criminalization of consumption because they believed that it would make addiction treatment more difficult, lost the

hegemonic authority they had over the issue. Olsson (1994) suggests that the redefinition of the problem as a social and political one made it easier for a stricter legal instance on drugs and drug abusers to be implemented, as the problem was now perceived as demanding urgent and firm political action.

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7 people as indulging in undeserved pleasure provided by drugs and spreading the drug

epidemic around to their peers. Young people on drugs became the welfare society’s enemy of choice, with their disregard for social norms and rules. The care and reform strategy, however, shifts the moral focus from the drug abusers towards society: drug abuse is a

symptom of something wrong with social structures; therefore those in charge have the moral obligation of helping addicts, who are perceived as victims of both society and of the

addiction disease. Finally, the limited legalization strategy, which was back then a matter raised mostly by artists and left-wing intellectuals. One possible conclusion from Lindgren’s (1993) account is that the reorientation of the topic towards moral issues and the social agitation that it entailed granted society a moral imperative to intervene in drastic ways, laying claims to increasingly tough measures.

According to Tham (1995), the debate about the Swedish drug politics remained open until the 1980s, with the two main strategies described by Lindgren (1993) represented,

respectively, in the lobbying made by National Organization for a Drug-Free Society (RNS) and the Swedish Organization for Help and Assistance to Drug Abusers (RFHL). They contended for defining the character of Swedish drug politics with the zero-tolerance

approach represented by RNS finally prevailing by the beginning of the 1980s. Such was the triumph that even the public debate between these two strains died out, emerging again only in the late 1990s (Goldberg, 2004).

With the establishment of the goal of a drug-free society, the drug problem provides a

channel for ideas about the nation to be conveyed, thus becoming so politically profitable that it becomes a cross-party issue (Lenke & Olsson, 2002; Goldberg, 2004). Nationalistic

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8 the struggle against drugs is seen as “means for reinforcing a national identity” (Tham,

1995:121).

Keeping Sweden off illicit drugs becomes a national project, thus making it easy to

manufacture a consensus around the issue and, consequently, to mobilize the public opinion in favour of whatever measure it takes to defend the country against drugs (Tham, 1995). Likewise, Goldberg (2004) asserts that a central element of modern Swedish culture – where the temperance tradition is still going strong – is self-control. In that sense, drugs constitute “a threat to the very fabric of society” (Goldberg, 2004: 555) in a way that alcohol does not. That is because a set of rules and norms to deal with the lack of control that alcohol induces has been developed overtime, whereas this has not been the case with illicit drugs.

In his analysis of the media debate on the drug problem between 1970-1999, one of

Törnqvist’s (2009) central findings is that, although drugs have been consistently portrayed as an external threat, such discourse finds a more concrete enemy and a heightened

nationalistic tone in the fear of liberalization brought by the Swedish integration into the EU in the 1990s. EU not only threatens Sweden with the smuggling of drugs through weakened borders, but above all with liberal ideas about drugs. As much as drugs themselves, such ideas must also be fought back, even if it means restricting freedom of speech for those who express what are described as wrong opinions (Törnqvist, 2009; Goldberg, 2004).

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9 irrationally strict and poorly designed healthcare is in fact the result not of scientific

ignorance but of a dogged defence of a drug-free society – that is, of an ideologically driven healthcare. According to the author, that explains why approaches that fall within a medical perspective, such as harm reduction, are rejected.

The constructionist approach that the authors take on the matter of the drug problem in Sweden accounts for how this problem has been constructed over time and how it has remained in place. However, they don’t explicitly indicate whether the construction of the problem is in itself a way to lay claim to a field. If the story of the development of the idea of a strict drug-free society were to be reinterpreted in terms of a dispute for the field of drug politics, there would be grounds to the claim that such an ideal is born in that dispute, for the purpose of securing that field. The question that could be asked is whether or not there are challenges to the current gatekeepers and their strict model and how those challenges take place, given that the prohibitionist paradigm is being questioned internationally (Seddon, 2010; Månsson, 2017). As the ideal of a drug-free society has prevailed so far, the previous literature has focused on its emergence and development. This study, on the other hand, seeks to explain its durability as resulting from a fierce defense of zero tolerance supporters’

position in the field.

Method and data

Method

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10 Fairclough’s method contains many elements for a more detailed-oriented textual analysis. However, given time and space constraints, and the limited scope of this thesis, only certain aspects of his method were taken up to guide this work. As I set out to examine the discourse produced as the result of the struggle in the field of drug politics between two major players, two topics of his method were particularly relevant: differences and discourses.

Since the texts on which this analysis is based were produced for a media debate arena, it is adequate to see them as being oriented towards creating and reinforcing distinctions between groups. Therefore special attention was paid to aspects that include the accentuation of differences between the players according to how each side portrays themselves and the other. As for the second topic, the focus is on what contextual discourses the discussion about the drug model draws upon. As Fairclough (2003) argues, discourses articulate other discourses already available in society in order to produce new ones.

Data

Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet were chosen as data sources by virtue of being the two largest morning papers in Sweden. The search was done via the online database

Mediarkivet, available through Stockholm University library services. In the specific case of SvD and DN, articles on the topic of drug politics were available first only from 1992. I considered using non-electronic databases that would cover the entire period of 1990-1999, but since this type of search would be more time consuming and the time frame for the thesis was limited, I opted to limit myself to Mediarkivet.

The process of working with the material can be divided in three stages. The first one was gathering the data, which involved deciding which search term resulted in the most relevant results; the second was making a preliminary reading of the articles; the third and last one was grouping, coding and reading them again in order to find the most suitable theoretical framework.

First Stage – Gathering the Data

I tried out the following search words: “knark”, “narkotika”, “drog”, “kokain”, “anfetamin”, “heroin”, “legalisering cannabis”, “missbruk”, “morfin” and “narkotikapolitik” in

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11 purpose of this thesis, the search resulted in a high number of irrelevant articles. That is, articles that only mentioned the word “drog” appeared in the search, but in which the theme of drug politics was not central or even a theme at all. The term “drog” had a total of 10.147 hits, whereas “knark” had 6.312, SvD and DN combined. Mediarkivet indicates the section each hit comes from, but does not offer any tool to sort them out as debate or news articles, so it is necessary to go through them manually. Because that would be extremely time-consuming, the searches that resulted in too many articles were not taken into account.

My research question guided which search term was most relevant for my thesis. As I was interested in the debate about the Swedish drug politics and not on how certain drugs are represented in the media discourse, I opted to focus on the results for the term

“narkotikapolitik”. The search resulted in a total of 163 hits in SvD and 153 in DN. These results included both news and opinion pieces. I began by downloading only the opinion ones. When this was done, the number of articles was still too high for the scope of this thesis – approximately 170 – so I limited the articles chosen to only those found in the

specific debate sections. Opinion pieces are found throughout both newspapers in the form of signed articles, as part of larger reports, etc. I printed out the debate and editorial pieces chosen and proceeded to a preliminary reading in order to determine what data would be relevant for the analysis. The criterion for selection was that drug politics should be the central theme of the articles. A few of them dealt with too specific questions and were ruled out. By specific I mean issues of a more technical nature, as for example discussions about the implementation of healthcare measures in the city of Stockholm or strategies for the application of drug control in the Swedish borders.

Second Stage – First In-Depth Readings

Now that a first selection had been done, I proceeded to read the articles in-depth. First I organized the articles in chronological order within each decade. That led to a preliminary idea about the opinions existing in the field, but also to a problem. In that first in depth

reading, I realized that opinion articles favourable to legalization were very limited. So I went back to the first stage and compared the search results for “legalisering cannabis” with the ones resulting from the term “narkotikapolitik”. The search results for “legalisering

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12 this particular opinion. In other words, I searched for opinion articles elsewhere in the

newspapers among these results, which I didn’t do for those types of opinions that were more prevalent in the data. However, that did not actually change the numbers of relevant articles. The results for opinion articles for “legalisering cannabis” overlapped with the ones for “narkotikapolitiken”. After removing all the articles that did not meet the criterion explained above, my data amounted to a total of 117 articles.

I then resumed the in-depth readings. At this point, three categories emerged from the material: hardliners, moderates, and liberals. The criteria for coding them is laid out as

follows: in order to be coded as a hardliner, the article had to support the goal of a “drug free society”, either by mentioning it explicitly or by supporting a combination of measures such as drug-free rehabilitation treatments, the criminalization of consumption, involuntary treatment, not making a distinction between what are considered light and hard drugs, not making a distinction between recreational use and addiction and being generally supportive of the current model and considering it successful. Articles that were a bit more critical of the model were allowed into this category only if the criticism aimed at reinforcing its harshest characteristics, by pointing out where it was not living up to its goal of a drug free society. In order to be coded as a moderate, the article could support a strict drug model as long as it combined proposals such as the end of the policy goal of a drug free society, the end of war on drugs, harm reduction measures, the definition of addiction as a disease, the end of criminalization of consumption as well as claims that the model was unsuccessful. For

liberals, the criterion was simpler and included only the defense of the liberalization of drugs, with the establishment of a drug market as a goal.

I was inspired by the way Lindgren (1993) coded the debate between1954 and 1968 , but used different categories as the content of the debate has changed. Whereas his categories

crime and sanction strategy and healthcare and reform strategy could both include

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Third stage – Grouping Articles Together and Defining the Approach

At the third stage, the articles were grouped according to the decades they had been published as well as the category of opinion (hardliners, moderates and liberals) they represented. Now the coding process was finished. The in-depth readings that were done from this point on looked at how the discourse evolved or not over time. At this point I could observe what kind of relationship each opinion constructed with each other so that I could decide which

theoretical framework would be suitable for making sense of it. The readings were guided by the need to answer why the model is still relatively strict, at the same time that they

stimulated the reflection about more specific questions that could be asked based on what the material provided.

The purpose of the organization of the articles in decades was also motivated by the need to observe the quantitative presence of each type of opinion throughout the periods. This can give indications of how much more the topic is debated and which opinion is trending. The result of this quantitative analysis shows that hardliners had been predominant all the way until the 2010s, when the amount of moderate articles outnumbered theirs for the first time since the 1990s. However, hardliners still comprise the majority of the opinions, with 61 articles. Moderates come in second with 51, whereas liberals only have 5. See the tables below: Categories 1992-1999 2000-2009 2010-2018 Total Hardliners 16 17 28 61 Moderates 5 13 33 51 Liberals 0 1 4 5 Source 1992-1999 2000-2009 2010-2018 Total SvD 3 8 32 43 DN 19 22 34 74 Total 117 Choice of Method

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14 one that could better contemplate general trends. Something is inevitably missed in that process, and during the coding and analysis of the data I had to make choices as to what to leave out. As much as I tried to include the most relevant patterns, extending the range of topics to be covered would have implied in adding perhaps one more theoretical framework in order to make sense of the data.

Nevertheless, as Fairclough also (2003) notes, there is no such thing as an objective analysis. He states that “we should assume that no analysis of a text can tell us all there is to be said about it – there is no such thing as a complete and definitive analysis of a text.” (Fairclough, 2003: 14). Hence the analysis will always be an expression of a standpoint that will give rise to specific questions. Fairclough (2003:15) adds that textual analysis is a tool with limited power to establish direct causal relationships between what is said and what is done.

Therefore, the method chosen intends to cast a light on how discourses can explain part of the reasons lying behind the strictness of the Swedish drug model without aiming at being the only explanation for that.

Research Ethics

This thesis was carried out using the critical discourse analysis method. No person was directly affected according to the Swedish Research Council’s (1990) four research ethic principles. These principles are the requirements for information, consent, confidentiality and research use of the material.

Results and Analysis

The following section is divided in two main parts: the first one is dedicated to the

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15 The results were organized around the concept of field, highlighting the struggles that take place within it. As there are basically two positions at stake, however, the choice for setting the discourses apart in different sections was made to reinforce their discursive identity. The focus of this analysis will be on what discourses are used to defend gatekeepers’ position in the field as well as those mobilized to challenge it.

Hardliners: Gatekeepers of the Drug-Free Society

The goal of a drug-free society is the main tenet in the field, so that all actions must stem from it. That is, in order to achieve that goal, the hardliner’s discourse makes it clear that a “war on drugs” has to be waged in the form of criminalization of consumption, involuntary drug tests and drug treatment, no distinction between users and abusers, no distinction between light and hard drugs and, above all, no drug-based treatment for those struggling with addiction. Any criticism to the goal of a drug-free society prompts a strong reaction.

The players in this side of the field are mainly politicians of the entire ideological spectrum, representatives of grassroots and international organizations against drugs – such as

Riksförbundet för narkotikafritt samhälle, Föräldrarna mot narkotika, European Cities Against Drugs, among many others, and lay people.

Normative Discourses in the 1990s and 2000s: The Ideal of a Drug-Free Nation, the Successful Swedish Model and the War on Drugs

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“Samhällets budskap är entydigt: Vi accepterar inte narkotika. Vi ser den inte som ett ofrånkomligt inslag i samhället. Vi vill ha ett samhälle fritt från narkotika. Därför kommer vi aldrig att tillåta öppna drogscener där missbruket få pågå ostört. Detta gäller även vår inställning till cannabis.” (Carlsson et al, 1995)

The problem of drugs is made worse by their foreign character:

”Det råder således inget tvivel om att en restriktiv drogpolitik av Sveriges modell kan misslyckas. Men i motsats till alkoholen har narkotika inga rötter i vår kultur.” (Editorial, DN, 1997)

In order to reinforce the nation’s hostility to drugs, the role of the public opinion is emphasized as one fundamental pillar in the model’s success:

“En av orsakerna till att den restriktiva svenska politiken har varit framgångsrik sägs vara att det finns en folklig opinion mot narkotika. Vi har ingen drogkultur i Sverige. Att, som i EU-parlamentet, få se en påverkad parlamentariker stå upp i talar-stolen och berätta att han röker hasch varje dag vore otänkbart i riksdagen.” (Ahlin, 1995)

As illicit drugs are considered alien to Swedish culture, efforts should be concentrated on keeping them away from Swedish borders. This discursive feature is then particularly noticeable during the period prior to Sweden joining the EU and immediately thereafter. At this point, the European Union appears riddled by “drug liberals” (drogliberaler,

knarkliberaler) eagerly forcing Sweden into total and unrestricted legalization, thus threatening Swedish ways with unwanted changes. Worst-case scenarios of total lack of control of the Swedish authorities over the country being “flooded” (Ohrlander, 1993) by drugs or covered by a cloud of smoke as a consequence of the imposed flexibilization of drug laws in Sweden illustrate the metaphors appearing in the material.

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17 Differences between Sweden and other EU countries are often emphasized in an exaggerated tone, as in the example below:

“(…)Den europeiska knarkvågen fortsätter. EG-parlamentet avisade visserligen med knapp majoritet krav på legalisering (131-11), men Italien har gett vika för trycket och gått från sin hårda linje. Från Hamburg rapporteras en formlig explosion av missbruk vilket leder till nya krav på legalisering. I Danmark röker 24 procent av skolungdomen hasch (3-4 procent i Sverige), och där säger representanter för sundhetsstyrelse att medborgarna måste lära sig att umgås med drogen på ett naturligt sätt.” (Ohrlander, 1993)

Whereas other countries are seen as failing or giving up, Sweden is depicted as highly

successful in its model, even when emerging trends may point towards another interpretation:

”Vi anser att den svenska politiken varit framgångsrik, men de senaste åren har visats på oroande tecken till en försämring av resultaten. I knappt något med Sverige jämförbart land har medborgarna inställning till narkotika varit så avvisande, nyrekrytering till

missbrukarleden så begränsad och dödligheten bland unga missbrukare så låg.” (Hulthén, 2001)

The model is used to emphasize differences between Sweden and others. The emphasis on stark differences between views on the matter aids the purpose of making the boundaries of the field very clear. A more nuanced discussion would render its boundaries more porous to different arguments. Emphasizing how successful the model is and not acknowledge its flaws is central to keep the structure of the field intact.

According to hardliners, the results of Sweden’s success can allegedly be measured in a higher age for drug use initiation among young Swedes in comparison to their European counterparts, and in a less prevalent use of drugs in the population in general. Hardliners contend that these results are a direct effect of the strict approach to drug use that has been in place since the 1980’s. The perception of the model as successful leads to the conclusion that there is no point in changing it, which legitimates hardliners dominant position in the field.

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18 inimical and thus one that must be defeated, rather than debated with. Sweden is portrayed as the country leading the battle in the international arena:

“1940, när världen förpestades av nazismen som spred sig likt en epidemi över Europa, såg den fria världen till Storbritannien för att finna sin ledare i motståndskampen. Den gången tog Winston Churchill på sig ledarrollen för att befria världen. Under 1980-talet såg världen till Sverige för att finna en ledare i kampen mot narkotikasmittan.” (Kenny, 1998)

Such position of leadership is threatened if Sweden “capitulates”. Capitulation refers here simply to the adoption of a harm reduction approach, which is often equated with

legalization. A common feature of hardliners discursive practice is to warn against every change in drug policies that does not entail harsher measures.

It is important to fend off the threats posed by drug consumption to Swedish society in this discourse, in particular among young people, because these threats are not only limited to the health of the population, but also because they reach core beliefs about major issues in Sweden. Protecting the country from drugs and from the dissemination of what are considered wrong opinions about them is tantamount to a defense of Swedish culture, the welfare society and democracy. Hardliners are thus the only ones capable of defending the nation, given that critics would yield to the enemy.

Consensus and popular support are part of hardliners strategy for winning political capital. Unsurprisingly, it is often mentioned that the current drug model is supported by the

population and that is why it works. Preserving people’s positive opinions about the current model is important for its maintenance and, consequently, the structure of the field.

Drug Abuse is Not a Disease

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“Det finns ett starkt samband mellan narkotika och brott, så för varje missbrukare som blir fri från drogerna, minskar vi också antalet stölder, rån och inbrott.” (Johansson, 2003)

As addiction is often equated with criminality, a definition of the phenomena exclusively as a disease is largely absent from hardliners discourse. Although many articles ask for more investments in (drug-free) healthcare, there is an unwillingness to define the problem in purely medical terms. But hardliners’ discourse on this matter doesn’t have a clear identity either; instead, an ambiguous stance towards the concept blends both a perception of drug abuse as a conscious choice, as criminal activity and as a state of chemical dependency that is triggered by illicit addictive substances. The fact that hardliner’s don’t make any distinction between abuse and recreational use may contribute to the lack of a clear definition of addiction. In other words, addiction is a social problem, hardliners say, but what are the mechanisms behind it? Gathering from what hardliners say about how to prevent it, drug addiction is something that would respond to information or scaremongering strategies, thus resembling a breach of social norms and values. That would explain the idea conveyed in the discourse that the role of the prohibitionist approach is to be in itself a way to send out signs that doing drugs is not socially accepted. The difference between how Sweden and other European countries see this issue is clear:

“(…) I kontinentaleuropa räknas narkomani vanligen som en sjukdom.” (Borgenhammar et al, 2009)

With criminalization of consumption, drug abusers become a class of people that threatens the rest of society. It is often implied in the discourse that they are somehow damaged goods, spreading their addiction around to innocent young people. A dramatic hypothetical situation is depicted with the purpose of showing that addicts are primarily potential threats to others rather than deserving of help themselves:

“Skall personalen rapportera missbrukare som har vårdnaden om barn eller hjälpa dem att injicera?” (Bergström, 2017)

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20 bureaucratic positions that concern the issue, as the question is considered too important to be left at the hands of specialists. Even Sweden’s minister of health and social affairs, Göran Hägglund, is pressed to defend the way the field is structured:

”För att motverka att drogfrågorna blir allt mer specialiserade expertangelägenheter bör vi införa kommunala missbruksnämnder med ansvar för alla drogfrågor, från

utskänkningstillstånd till tvångsvård. Ett sådant steg skulle upprätta drogfrågorna som ett eget politiskt ansvarsområde.” (Borgenhammar, 2009)

The focus on experience is a strategy to defend the field from becoming medicalized, which would imply in its restructuring. The practical experience of those who have worked in healthcare is often pitted against scientific knowledge:

”Mer kunskap behövs om missbruksbehandling, sägs det, och den kunskapen ska – av någon anledning – inte främst bygga på erfarenheter. För många som missbrukar, för före detta missbrukare, anhöriga eller andra som kommer i kontakt med missbruk är detta oförståeligt. Deras erfarenheter är just kunskap om hur det förhåller sig i verkligheten och den visar tydligt på de problem som följer med bland annat subutexbehandling.” (Jernbeck & Avsan, 2011)

The defense of a drug-free healthcare is thus based on the goal of a drug-free society, but also on the hardliners understanding of what addiction is. In line with their definition of the drug abuse as a social and public problem, addiction must be interpreted outside of a medical framework, whether or not there is consensus about a clear alternative framework to describe it. As it is not considered a disease no medical treatment should be allowed.

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21 one. The discourse of addiction as something else other than a disease is thus central to sustain hardliners position in the field.

From Late 2000s Onwards: Increased Consumption, High Mortality Rates by Overdose and Harm-Reduction

The perception of the Swedish model as entirely successful is, until the late 2000s, a point of relative high consensus. The high mortality rates among heavy drug users were either mostly ignored or dismissed as unreliable data for comparison with other countries, as in the

example below:

“Men som Milton, Kühlhorn och Lindberg påpekar finns inga vetenskapliga belägg som talar för något annat än att den svenska narkotikapolitiken hittills har varit framgångrik. Statistik visar att dödligheten bland narkomaner ligger högre i Sverige än i Nederländerna, men jämförelserna är vanskliga eftersom beräkningsmetoderna skiljer sig åt. Skolundersökningar visar dock att drog-erfarenheten är många gånger större bland ungdomar i länder som Storbritannien, Nederländerna, Danmark och Tyskland än bland ungdomar i Sverige.”

(Editorial, DN, 1996)

Given that the model is considered successful by hardliners, any problem that emerges is not understood as resulting from its intrinsic flaws, but rather as a consequence of the acceptance of liberal ideas about drugs. Defending the current model justifies even attempts at silencing the debate itself: in a letter signed by 28 anti-drug organizations demanding harsher measures from the government, one of the items states that the suggestion of different approaches should be rejected outright:

”(…) Alla förslag om avkriminalisering måste tillbakavisas och vi avvisar helt uppdelning av narkotika i ’hårda eller mjuka droger.’” (RNS et al, 2001)

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22

”Vi står nu inför ett avgörande vägval, varnade Narkotikakommissionen i slutbetänkande som i januari överlämnades till regeringen. Antingen flyttar vi narkotikapolitiken högre upp på den politiska dagordningen eller så erkänner vi slaget förlorat.” (Editorial, DN, 2001)

Since hardliners only consider two possible scenarios in this issue – namely zero-tolerance or total liberalization, everything else in between is immediately cast as being part of an attempt to impose a drug liberal agenda on Sweden.

“Alex Wodak är en känd anhängare av så kallad harm reduktion, vilket innebär att han vill göra det lättare för människor att knarka, bland annat genom att tillåta cannabis. Det är en helt annan agenda än den vi har i sjukvården i Sverige. Överdödlighet bland narkomaner löser man inte med sprututbytesprogram.”(Bromme et al, 2009).

During the 90’s and early 2000’s, any discussion about the shortcomings of the current drug model were met with accusations of being legalization attempts in disguise, when in fact what were being raised were questions about the need to rethink the ideal of a drug-free society in order to increase chances of recovery for drug abusers. It was a debate about the kind of healthcare that should be dispensed, not one about creating a legal drug market. Hardliners would react so strongly to it that moderates would hardly get the chance to really deepen the discussion. Their role in the debate was limited by the need to constantly defend themselves from accusations of being “knarliberaler”, that is, pro-legalization.

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23

”Den ökande dödligheten kan förklaras med en omfattande nedrustning av vårdinsatserna och en ökad medikalisering av vården. År 2006 underlättade myndigheterna för missbrukarna att få ersättningsdroger som metadon och bupronerfin av samhället. Då sköt dödligheten i höjden. Nu dör fler av dessa preparat än av heroinet de skulle ersätta.” (Bergström, 2017)

Hardliners exempt therefore the basic premises of the current model from any responsibility in the outcome. Tackling the threat posed to the Swedish drug model by those who question its premises appears as one of their highest priorities. In 2003, Morgan Johansson, the former minister of health and social affairs, penned an article in SvD whose title was

“Drogliberalerna får inte lyckas”, where he commented on the danger represented by this movement but also on the strength of those supporting the zero-tolerance approach:

“Detta är oroväckande. Samtidigt finns det starka motkrafter. Jag är mycket glad för att det internationellt växer ett brett och folkligt motstånd mot det drogliberala budskapet. Ett upprop med namnet Wiendeklarationen, som stöder FN-konventionerna och som tar avstånd från legaliseringskraven, med hundratusentals underskrifter överlämnas till sessionen. Många svenskar har varit aktiva i den namninsamlingen”. (Johansson, 2003)

With the concept of harm reduction gaining ground in the public debate by the end of the 2000s, the struggle for the field intensifies. Although the nationalistic rhetoric of the previous period wears off somewhat, hardliners are still fiercely disputing who has the right to talk about drug politics in Sweden.

New Players in the Field: Moderates and Liberals

The two new categories of players in the field of drug politics are identified as “moderates” and “liberals”. Moderates are the majority of the critical voices. They are comprised of a significant number of social science and medical researchers and practioners, state

bureaucrats and an increasing number of politicians. Among those defending legalization of so called light drugs are members of political party’s youth associations.

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24

The Drug-Free Society: a Failed Model

Moderate’s access to the debate happens by playing by hardliners rules. They don’t intend to dismantle the field as such because they recognize its existence as necessary, but they want to restructure it by replacing hardliners in the dominant positions. They insist they agree with hardliners that drug abuse is a serious social problem and it must be dealt with urgently. As opposed to hardliners, who reject the debate itself, moderates strategy is to approach the discussion as a possibility to reach consensus on some necessary changes.

Moderates discourse often consists of pleas for the zero-tolerance model to be relinquished because it is outdated, unscientific or simply detrimental to Sweden’s image in an

international arena increasingly liberal to drugs. Again, drawing upon a discourse about the nation is another way of gaining access to the debate according to the rules established by hardliners. Sweden is not leading the war on drugs as hardliners put it, but lagging behind necessary changes being promoted by other countries. Hence it is hardliners, not moderates, who are not aligned with Swedish values:

“Sprututbytesprogram och fixrum borde vara en självklarhet i ett land som påstås vara en humanitär stormakt.” (Sokolnicki, 2016)

Moderates emphasize the current model’s drawbacks by depicting a scenario of ever deepening crisis in order to stir up support for changes. Urgent actions must be taken lest a catastrophe would happen. The research material gives evidence that this has been a discursive practice for over 20 years now:

“Missbruk av narkotika ökar kraftigt. Siffrorna är tillbaka på 1970-talets larmnivåer. Antalet tunga missbrukare har nästan fördubblats på tio år samtidigt som allt fler dör av sitt missbruk. Under 1996 prövade 14 procent av de värnpliktiga narkotika. Utveckling visar att den hårda svenska narkotikapolitiken har varit verkningslös.” (Carlberg et al, 1997)

It is implied that hardliners’ views on the matter are outdated:

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25

år. Svensk narkotikapolitik är en pågående nationell tragedi där folk dör helt i onödan. Behovet att nytänkande är skriande.” (Yarollahi et al, 2012).

Sweden’s position in the matter is compared to that of other countries. Its representation as a leader of the war on drugs is exchanged for that of a likely follower:

”I internationella sammanställningar är svensk drogpolitik dödligare än något jämförbart lands. Vi vet också att länder som frångått kriminalisering av eget bruk sett dödstalen sjunka. Norge och Portugal är aktuella exempel på detta.” (Ludvigsson, 2018)

As it can be observed from the quotes, the crisis discourse remains steady overtime. This may give indications that the field continues to be structured as it was since the debate resumed in the late 1990s.

Although moderates stress increased consumption as a legitimate concern, the most pressing issue are the high rates of death by overdose. The Swedish zero-tolerance model is described as resulting from a moralistic – and therefore irrational – view on the matter. Moderates draw upon a discourse of scientific authority in an attempt to undermine hardliners dominance in the field by rendering their views illegitimate:

”Ute i världen börjar politiker och vanligt folk få upp ögonen för de forskningsrön som visar att avkriminalisering är skonsammare och bättre för både samhälle och människor. I Sverige verkar dock denna insikt ännu inte ha slagit rot. Moraliskt och närmast vetenskapsföraktande motstånd har kommit från främst kristdemokratiskt håll, men även från vår egen organisation. Det är något vi vill förändra; vår framtida narkotikapolitik ska baseras på vetenskap och skademinimering.” (Askeljung et al, 2011)

The differences between both groups are reinforced when moderates imply that a scientific approach is objective and free of moral values:

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26 In moderate’s discourse, the field must be captured by those who have the proper

professional credentials for dealing with drug abuse and are not guided by moralism.

According to them, the unattainable goal of a drug-free society has long outlived the context of its formulation and survives only thanks to the dogged persistence of loud and high-strung gatekeepers. The utopia of keeping every Swedish citizen clean from illicit drugs is a major hinder to a serious and evidence-based debate about the current drug politics shortcomings, moderates argue. Ultimately, what they want is not only some changes, but the replacement of the current prohibitionist framework for a harm reduction one.

Reclaiming the Concept: Drug Abuse as Disease

Questioning hardliners position in the field entails redefining what views are considered legitimate or, in other words, what discourses are politically acceptable. Therefore moderates wage a persistent campaign to change people’s perceptions of what drug abuse really is: it is not a character flaw, but a disease. The distinction between recreational use and abuse becomes necessary in this view in order to isolate drug abuse from conscious acts, constituting it exclusively beyond the realm of individual responsibility. The view of addiction as a disease leads to claims over the positions held by hardliners in the field:

”Det är fastslaget att narkotikamissbruk är en sjukdom och ska därför behandlas därefter. Hur den behandlingen ser ut måste avgöras av läkarna och forskningen, inte av riksdagspolitiker.” (Jonsson & Nordin, 2013)

Moderates propose a redefinition of the boundaries of the field so as to move drug abuse into the medical domain and prevent that other professional categories have a say in it:

”Beroendesjukdom bör hanteras av sjukvården och inte inom rättsväsendet. Polisen har till uppgift att upprätthålla nuvarande lagstiftning, och inte att agera ideologisk bromskloss i den nödvändiga utvecklingen mot en evidens- och vårdbaserad hantering av missbruk.” (Yarollahi et al, 2012)

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27 medicalized approach to drug abuse, but also the recognition that this is still a serious social problem, one that medicine should instead be in charge of. Moreover, whereas addiction is explained as the result of broader social conditions, mortality by overdose is constructed as the direct and avoidable result of the current drug model. In this way, moderates are also portraying the Swedish drug politics as a problem in itself. One of the reasons for the current model being so problematic is amateurism. Moderates claim that hardliners allow lay people to preside over healthcare issues:

”Riktigt tokigt blir det när de vill komma bort från en evidensbaserad specialistvård för beroendesjukdomarna och ersätta detta med demokratiskt valda nykterhetsnämnder, där personer som tycker saker skulle bestämma om vård och behandling

.

” (Hemmingsson, 2009)

They go on to highlight the irrationality of an amateur-driven healthcare:

“Hur man ser på detta får stora konsekvenser för hur vård och behandling utformas. Jag har hört otaliga berättelser om hur människor med narkotikaberoende stängts av från behandling när de fått återfall eller begått en brottslig handling. Skulle motsvarande bemötande av människor med andra sjukdomar vara möjlig? Jag tror inte det. Inget vårdprogram för unga med ätstörningar skulle drömma om att skriva ut patienten som ertappas med att stoppa fingrarna i halsen efter middagen. Tvärtom. När patientens symtom förvärras intensifierar man stödet eller söker andra behandlingsvägar

.

” (Oguz,2014)

Negative views about Sweden are elicited in moderate’s discourse. They regret the fact that Sweden is lagging behind in the international arena when it could be leading by taking on a pragmatic approach.

“De flesta länder i den demokratiska världen menar att den som uppfyller de medicinska kriterierna för beroende lider av en sjukdom. Sverige hör till de få som inte talar om beroende som en sjukdom”. (Oguz, 2014)

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28 number of moderate articles surpassing those of hardliners in the past decade, it could be suggested that what are considered legitimate discourses in the field may be shifting.

Legalization and the Economic Rationality

The liberals make a timid appearance in the debate first in 2003, returning again only at the end of the period in focus. Therefore it is not possible to properly analyze their contribution in the struggle for the field. It is worth noting however that their argument is, initially, careful not to break away with the rhetoric of war on drugs:

“All erfarenhet visar att en förbudspolitik är dömd att misslyckas. Däremot kan en väl avvägd liberalisering minska den förbjudna ”fruktens” lockelser. Detta betyder inte att inte

narkotikamissbruket likaväl som andra typer av missbruk skall bekämpas, men inte med förbud.” (Carleheden, 2003)

That is not surprising, given the narrow opinion spectrum observed in the field, particularly in the period between the 90’s and early 2000’s. However, in the recent articles, liberals join moderates in their claim that the ‘war on drugs’ is more harmful than drugs themselves. Like moderates, they see the current model as an irrational path to keep on:

”Det är fullt möjligt att Sverige aldrig kommer att legalisera weed. Då hoppas jag att det beslutet bygger på så sakliga argument som möjligt snarare än känsloutbrott och fördomar. Precis som i fallet nikotin måste vi föra denna diskussion med rationalism, inte moralism.” (Helmerson, 2018)

The representation of Sweden as a follower in this matter is also present in their discourse:

”Israel förväntas legalisera cannabis 2019, samma år som Norge avser avkriminalisera cannabis. Mot bakgrund av denna förändring i vår omvärld borde vi se över vår egen drogpolitik för att hitta en rationell och sund hållning baserad på fakta och rationella avvägningar hellre än konservativ, om än modern, tradition.” (Steisner, 2018)

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29

”Det finns fler viktiga skäl varför vi måste tänka om här. Inte bara skulle det kunna rädda liv utan även frigöra resurser. Politik handlar om att prioritera och resurserna behövs just nu för att lösa våldsbrott och brott mot äganderätten som i dag oroar människor.” (Selling & Eglund, 2017)

Although personal freedom as a legitimate reason for regulating the use of ‘light drugs’ is present in the articles, the main line of argument revolves around the idea of economic rationality. As seen in the quote above, this idea is associated with current concerns about an alleged rise in criminality.

Associating the drug problem with other discourses rather than one driven by nationalistic concerns is moderates’ and liberals’ strategy for bringing the drug problem into a discursive framework that is guided by clear discipline boundaries, respectively medical and

economical. In other words, they want to remove the issue from a non-specialized discourse that allows for connections that are deemed arbitrary and random.

Discussion

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30 The analysis showed that a possible answer for the strict Swedish zero tolerance approach to the drug problem lies in the constitution of the broader domain of drug politics as a ‘field of struggles’, as defined by Bourdieu (1983). Hardliners, the supporters of a zero-tolerance approach, are the gatekeepers of the field and are therefore in possession of the political capital required to impose ‘legitimate’ views on the matter (Bourdieu, 1991; 1983).

A historical perspective on how the issue has developed overtime is necessary to understand the current strict approach and to put the research questions into context. The redefinition of the ‘drug issue’ from a medical and individual condition to an urgent social and public problem in the 1960s (Lindgren, 1993; Olsson, 1994; Lenke & Olsson, 2002; Goldberg, 2004; Edman, 2012; Edman & Olsson, 2014 ), sets the stage for legal and repressive solutions to be adopted, as Edman (2012) notes. With the full criminalization of consumption in 1993 (Goldberg, 2004; Tham, 1995), the zero-tolerance perspective on the matter becomes hegemonic even in the media (Lenke & Olsson, 2002; Goldberg, 2004). By covering the subsequent decades as well as the 1990s, the present analysis shows that the renewed struggle for the field is expressed in the emergence of strong criticism of the model, mostly by what I denominated moderates. Since liberals make a small appearance much later on their impact on the field could not yet be properly analyzed.

Consolidated in the 1980s (Tham, 1995), the policy goal of a drug-free society was the dividing line for the present classification. As Goldberg (2004) himself notes, the current debate is no longer between the categories Lindgren (1993) described but one between a zero-tolerance approach (hardliners) and a harm reduction one (moderates).

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31 This discourse also constructs alternative, normative views of drug abuse in which addiction is not seen as a disease, but as a matter of personal responsibility. This is understood as part of their strategy to retain power over the field by preventing its medicalization through the expansion of medical discourses about addiction (Goldberg, 2004; Edman & Olsson, 2014).

In this field of forces, hardliner’s political capital is sustained by the support of a public opinion favorable to the strict model. Thus one of the fronts in the ‘war against drugs’ is for people’s opinions. As the success of the model depends on the reproduction of their discourse (Foucault, 1971) they attempt to silence the debate. They fear that the discussion of new perspectives on the matter will influence the population to think differently about drugs, leading to the loss of support for the current model. This confirms the strong ideological character attributed to the issue by Edman (2012).

Moderates question the validity of this discourse based on an alleged practical experience and what they consider irrational moralism. They want to replace it with a proper scientific discourse, one that Foucault (1971) defines as deriving its validity from the rules that govern the process of its production. All this means that the debate does not serve the purpose of discussing different views of the issue and reaching a consensus about what the best solutions are, but it is instead a struggle for rendering certain ways of seeing the drug issue as

legitimate or illegitimate. In other words, this is a struggle for having the dominant discourse in society (Foucault, 1971). As language has a dialectic relationship with reality (Fairclough, 2003), possessing the dominant discourse guarantees dominance over the field of drug politics (Bourdieu, 1983; 1991).

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32 Whereas hardliners see all problems as coming from the outside, moderates construct the current model as a problem in itself. In their struggle for the field, moderates aim at

substituting hardliner’s views by denouncing them as arbitrary conventions (Bourdieu, 1983) that are based on moralistic views on drugs rather than on scientific evidence. Medical sciences are thus constructed in this discourse as domains of rationality, opposed to the irrationality represented in moral positions about drugs.

Moderate’s main focus is at deconstructing the view of the model as successful and at redefining the concept of addiction, bringing a medical view back to field. They insist on a clear definition of addiction as a disease, but eschew the individual character that had been previously assigned to it by medical doctors, as accounted by Olsson (1994), acknowledging the social aspects that contribute to the development of addiction problems. Their view of what addiction is and how it should be treated gains ground in the debate by the past decade, with the amount of critical articles surpassing for the first time those of hardliners. However, the characteristics of the discourses described above are quite consistent over time, with hardliners fiercely defending their position in the field and with moderates questioning it, characterizing more continuity than change (Månsson, 2017).

The strict character of Swedish drug politics can therefore be partially explained by the fact that hardliners are still in possession of the dominant discourses about drug politics

(Foucault, 1971). These ‘legitimate discourses’ justify the way the field is structured (Bourdieu, 1983). Giving away the discourse of a drug free society is tantamount to losing dominance in the field, as hardliners fear that a medical framework would follow suit. The zero tolerance approach remains as a result.

Future Research

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33

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35 Editorial (2001). ”Vaccinera mot droger”, Dagens Nyheter, 08/04.

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Jernbeck, Isabella & Avsan, Anti (2011). ”Läkemedel mot missbruk tar över den illegala marknaden” Dagens Nyheter, 09/10.

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Jonsson, Anders & Nordin, Rickard (2013). ”Narkotikamissbruk är en sjukdom” Dagens

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brottslighet” Dagens Nyheter, 22/11.

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