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Drug Policies of the Netherlands and Sweden: How Do They Compare?

September 8, 2001 – National Families in Action is pleased to bring to your attention a report that Hassela Nordic Network will be publishing in segments starting Monday, September 10, 2001. The report is described below. To read each day's segments, see http://www.hnnsweden.com/hnn_latestnews_main.htm.

From Hassela Nordic Network (HNN), September 7, 2001:

In a joint European Parliament project, originally initiated by an HNN executive, Dutch and Swedish researchers have produced a study comparing the drug policies of the two countries. The report makes very interesting reading and corrects most of the false statements, so-called ‘‘facts'' used to mislead politicians, policy makers, the media and the general public."

From the Executive Summary of the Summary:

The drug policies of all the countries in the European Union have a common goal: to reduce the problems that drugs entail. Opinions on how this goal should be defined and attained vary widely. The polemical tone of the debate is often sharp, leaving no scope for reconciliation. For this reason discussions between representatives of the various countries and drug-policy models are not very constructive. They all have their figures, tables and scientific investigations to substantiate their own arguments.

Different drug policies have developed ranging from ‘‘zero tolerance'' strategies where the ultimate goal is to eradicate all forms of illegal drug use, to ‘‘harm reduction'' strategies where the focus is on limiting harm caused by drug use. Till today, none of these strategies have been able to demonstrate its complete superiority over the other. Lack of clarity in the objectives, concepts and definitions as well as the absence of precise descriptions of policy measures actually carried out are only a few of the obstacles preventing us from drawing valid conclusions concerning the efficiencies of the different drug policies. Another of the obstacles preventing us from developing a good understanding of the differences in drug situations between countries is the lack of data that is immediately comparable. The objective of this report relates to the latter obstacle. Through a description of some important concepts on drug issues we will try to demonstrate the most important problems that can appear when comparing the results of policies. This might seem to be a straightforward task, but as we will try to show, the drug issue is too complex to allow meaningful comparison by only using single indicators.

In this report, data on drug use and related consequences in Sweden and the Netherlands are used in order to illustrate the complexity of country comparisons. The fact that these countries are proponents of different drug policy approaches, the former with its stricter ‘‘zero tolerance'' policy and the latter with an elaborated ‘‘harm reduction'' approach, will further highlight the difficulties and delicacies in making such comparisons. Even if the countries differ in how drug problems are conceptualised and policies conducted, they both give top priority among social problems. This can be seen in the efforts and resources laid down on for instance legislation, prevention, treatment and research.

Starting Monday September 10th, HNN will publish parts of the report daily. We advise you not to miss it.

© Hassela Nordic Network

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