Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Sweden

Sweden is one of the Scandinavian countries that in the past wholeheartedly embraced pharmaceutical industries, alcohol and tobacco and imposed strict prohibitions on cannabis. The results in Sweden have also been much like the other Scandinavian countries where this action has led to widespread abuse of prescription medicine, alcohol and tobacco. It has also triggered heroin use and the proliferation of other dangerous drugs like methamphetamine, synthetic cannabinoids and novel psychotropic substances. The damage is not restricted to any particular age groups but is evident across the age spectrum. Vast amounts of resources are spent on law enforcement and treating drug users as criminals. Most of the steps taken to curb the harms have failed and the usage of drugs is only spiraling and the fatalities increasing. Introduction of safe drug consumption rooms, needle exchange programs, onsite drug testing at events and the decriminalization of drug usage are some of the steps that Sweden is looking at to address the drug problem like other Scandinavian countries including Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Finland.

Yet the problems and the steps being taken are similar in Sweden as in the other countries. All the above mentioned actions do not address the root of the problem but only try to reduce its harms. The root problem in Sweden, as in every other place in the world, is connected to the fact that humans have always used recreational drugs from the earliest times. This in itself is not really a problem. Most of man's recreational drug pursuits have been largely beneficial for the human race fueling art, creativity, philosophy, spirituality, innovation and health. One of the best recreational drugs humans ever discovered was cannabis and it served as a mainstay for humans for thousands of years. Then came an ill thought out and you could say outright foolish decision to prohibit the plant. This was driven purely by selfish interests who wanted to compete with and replace the plant through synthetic man-made substances purely for financial gain. It also had the added benefit of being a tool for authorities to suppress the poor, minorities, indigenous people and women of every nation in the world. Sweden, like all the countries around the world, succumbed to the pressure, temptation and propaganda and outlawed cannabis. When people were deprived of their familiar safe recreational drug and left with no option but to consume the freely available yet highly addictive and potent alternate drugs, they did so in the belief that governments and decision makers knew what was best for them. The result is where we are at now with the most affected areas of society being the elderly, the youth and the ill besides the earlier mentioned demographics suppressing whom was one of the ulterior motives in many places.

To try and reverse the effects, Sweden must, like all other countries, not just decriminalize cannabis, but legalize it for adult recreational use so that people have a safe recreational drug option and a chance to escape the potent alternatives that they risk getting addicted and losing their lives to. Cannabis legalization will reduce the need for all the other steps put together that are being looked at currently in terms of harm reduction. Many European countries like Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK, etc have started making the changes in typical European fashion, allowing its use internally for its own people through sourcing, often illegally, from other countries while maintaining an international stance of opposition to cannabis. Sweden needs to act fast, not just nationally, but also internationally, and back cannabis legalization at the UN so that the world can try and roll back at least a part of the damages that cannabis prohibition has brought about in the last century or so. It can take a leaf out of Norway's book and push for reconsideration of cannabis legal status at the UN.

Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.

'The bulk of tramadol seized in the period 2014– 2018 was seized in West and Central Africa (notably in Nigeria, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and the Niger), followed by North Africa (notably Egypt, Morocco and the Sudan) and the Near and Middle East (notably Jordan and the United Arab Emirates). In some instances, countries in Western and Central Europe (notably Malta and Greece) have been used as transit countries for tramadol destined for North Africa (Egypt and Libya), although some of the tramadol seized in Europe (in particular Sweden) was also intended for the local market. For the first time ever, significant seizures of tramadol were reported in South Asia (India) in 2018, accounting for 21 per cent of the global total that year, which reflects the fact tramadol was put under the control of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act of India in April 2018.

As the full-scale scheduling of tramadol in India took place in 2018,218 and India had been the main source for (illegal) tramadol shipments, the decline in seizures outside India in 2018 may have been the result of a disrupted market. By contrast, and probably as a result of the control in India, seizures of tramadol in that country increased greatly in 2018, and thus in South Asia as a whole (more than 1,000-fold compared with a year earlier).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

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Wednesday 8 May 2019

Cannabis and Sweden

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