Researcher: "Police should not chase addicts"

Compulsory urine tests and punishment for minor drug offenses. These are the methods the police have invested more and more resources in the last decades, shows SVT's review.

But the police's methods are questioned.

Deputy researcher Markus Heilig is very critical of the police urine tests and that it is punishable to use drugs in Sweden.

- If punishment had a good preventive effect, we would have seen less use. As far as I know, there are no signs that these effects have been achieved, says Markus Heilig.

What is it?

- If you have gotten a long way in your addiction, a penalty will not help you out of addiction. Rather, it risks destroying trust in society, which means that the individual does not seek care and treatment when it actually needs it.

Drug use in Sweden has increased since it became illegal in 1988. The same applies to the number who die in drug overdoses. Sweden has almost the highest overdose mortality rate in Europe, according to the European drug authority EMCDDA.

No one has yet investigated whether the legislation and the efforts of the police have had an effect on the development. Mats Löfving, head of NOA, the national operational department and one of the highest chiefs in the police, nevertheless defends the police method.

- We have good experience of it and see many good examples of helping young addicts, he says.

Is it not important to listen to the researchers and doctors who have knowledge about addiction problems and who are critical?

- Yes, that is very important. However, there is a difference between what individual professors say and what science says. We are taking on science and we believe that the strategy we decided last year against drug crime is based on the most modern science available, says Mats Löfving.

SVT has asked the police authority for references to the research on which the police's new strategy is said to be based. But the report we receive lacks scientific references, except for an interview study from BRÅ, which mainly concerns shootings in criminal environments.

Later this spring, Norway, which had similar legislation to Sweden, is expected to decriminalize drug use and transfer the responsibility for drugs from the judiciary to the health care system. One of the concerns about the turnaround is that drug use among young people will increase.

Deputy researcher Markus Heilig admits that there is such a risk.

- Many people believe that there is a signal value in saying that drug use is not ok.

Markus Heilig and many others who work with addiction problems think that their own use of drugs should no longer be punishable in Sweden. On the other hand, he is totally against making drugs legal.

- It is important to uphold this norm system that I believe is stubborn, because drugs can be harmful to many people. At the same time, if you, as an individual, suffer from abuse, the police should not chase you, he says.

Last year, police drug tests hit a record, with over 39,000 analyzes performed. Despite criticism, Mats Löfving, head of NOA, wants to do even more urine tests in the future. Today, it is a problem that more young men than women are being tested, he says.

- If we can be more offensive to young women who abuse drugs then they would get help faster, where I think we can develop.