The police force a record number of drug tests

"You can assume that addicts are hiding behind the figures and that you need to do more than punish punishment for minor drug crimes in order to overcome their problems," says Fredrik Kugelberg, chief toxicologist at the Forensic Medicines Agency, RMV.

In Sweden, not only drugs but also the use itself is illegal. This means that the Swedish police have the right to demand urine and blood samples from people whom they suspect are drug-affected.

Last year, the Forensic Medicines Agency conducted over 39,000 analyzes of urine from police tests, which is a record. The purpose of the tests is to prevent and prevent abuse, but between 20 and 30 percent of the analyzes conducted in recent years come from people who have already been tested before.

Urine tests have risen sharply since the beginning of the 2000s, as have criminal reports relating to their own use of drugs.

Since the 1990s, the workforce the police have been putting down on drug cases has nearly tripled, according to the Crime Prevention Council, Brå.

The police authority has also paid over half a billion to RMV to analyze the urine samples taken on suspicion of own use since the 1990s, shows invoices that SVT News has requested from the authority. Well-used resources, says Mats Löfving, head of NOA, the national operative department and one of the senior police chiefs.

- Last year we paid SEK 35 million for the tests. It is very reasonable, he says.

Mats Löfving believes that the method of drug testing is effective.

- We will use this method because we have good experience of it and see many good examples of how we can help young addicts.