In 2019, the police were tasked with strengthening the work against the illegal drug trade.

The work was described as an important effort to "make the financing of organized crime more difficult" and to increase security in society.

A group that was often raised in the debate was the so-called party junkies.

- Whoever is thinking of partying tonight, they should know that they are involved in financing these gangs, said Prime Minister Stefan Löfven in August of the same year.

Even in Sundsvall, people point to party drugs as a cause of the recent drug conflict.

Professor: "Wrong thinking"

It is well known that the drug trade is a major source of income for criminal gangs.

This does not mean that a reduction in party drinking would break the gangs, says Björn Johnson, professor of social work at Malmö University.

- The whole idea of ​​reducing gang crime by targeting efforts at sporadic users is wrong.

The group accounts for a relatively small share of the drug market, he says.

Nor does the claim that you can stop gang crime by reducing drug use in general have much support in the research.

- We had an illegal drug market in the 60s too, but then we didn't see this kind of escalating deadly violence.

The violence is simply not only related to the drug.

Among other things, it is an extremely vulnerable environment with young men who shoot to kill - to avoid dying themselves.

Criminologist: Stop the guns

According to Manne Gerell, docent in criminology at Malmö University, there is a lack of proper evaluations of the police's work against the illegal drug market.

- Therefore, it is also not possible to say what they have succeeded or failed in.

They have invested a lot in reducing the open drug trade on the street and have achieved some success there.

But we can state that the drug trade is still going on.

In order to stop gang settlements, one should rather focus on the violence itself, he believes.

- It is partly about stopping the access to weapons.

"Stop shooting" in Malmö is a good example of that.

The second is to increase prosecution.

Police and prosecutors must get better at simply locking up these shooters, he says.