A record number of Swedes have died drug-related deaths, SvD reports. Fresh statistics for the year 2017 from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction show that the only country with a higher number of deaths per million people was Estonia. If its any comfort – which it isn’t – Estonia’s numbers (130 deaths per million) were way higher than Sweden’s (92 deaths per million).
The official Swedish policy towards drugs is one of zero-tolerance. In recent years, this policy has come under a lot of critique from people in the know who say that Sweden basically wages war on drug users instead of trying to treat them. Testing for drug use also uses up huge amounts of law enforcement’s time and resources, and there have been charges that the police spend more time tracking down drug use in the suburbs that have a large immigrant population than in their socioeconomic opposite numbers. There are many voices that call for more regulation in drug use, and less all-out criminalization.
Allowing more access to Naloxin, the anti-overdose miracle medicine, is, however, about the only new thing the government has considered in recent years. Legalising cannabis, that even Sweden’s soul mate Canada has recently done, is so far pretty much out of the question.
There is no question that something is definitely rotten in the state of Sweden , as drug-related deaths have doubled in the last ten years.