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Sweden: Editorial: Bodstrom Reverses On Drugs
Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)
Tuesday 17 Oct 2000 Website: http://www.dn.se/ Author: Ewa Stenberg BODSTROM REVERSES ON DRUGS There is a hard battle being fought in the European narcotics debate between the liberal and restrictive positions. Sweden has represented the strongest support for a restrictive policy. Because of this, Justice Minister Thomas Bodstroms position on drug issues is important. Already on his first working day he was forced to back away from a two year old debate article. Minister of Justice Thomas Bodstrom no longer stands by his earlier criticism of the governments narcotics policy. Two years ago he called the criminalisation of drugs meaningless and opportunistic. Now he fully supports it. Thomas Bodstrom started his first day on the job by going into reverse. At the weekend the newspaper Expressen published excerpts from his two year old debate article in Liberal Debatt. There he describes the criminalisation of drug consumption introduced at the beginning of the 1990's as "A demonstration of political opportunism". He writes critically of how his predecessor Laila Freivalds and the Moderats ex- Minister of Justice Gun Hellsvik conducted "A sort of duel over who stood for the most restrictive criminal policy". On Monday morning it was time to inherit Freivalds chair along with her advisors and policy. And by then all criticism of an excessivly hard Social Democrat narcotics policy had vanished. "What I was adressing in the Liberal Debatt article is the oversimplifying and caricaturising that primarily the Moderates stand for with their belief that punishment is all that is neccessary to fight crime. And that is abolutely not the case," says Thomas Bodstrom to Dagens Nyheter when we meet him on Monday morning. He now stands fully behind the criminalisation of drug use. "Yes, it is important. But we should not rest with that. It is rather meaningless to only have criminalisation. The authorities must also work preventativly and follow up punishment with care. Punishment alone means drug abusers are excluded from society," he says. He distances himself from the criticism of Laila Freivalds when Dagens Nyheter meets him in his room together with those who are to be his nearest co-workers in the Ministry. Thomas Bodstrom looks grimly resolute when he describes his old debate article as "Provocativly written as an advocate". "With a certain self criticism I can say that many of the things I was seeking are here at the ministry. An investigation at the National Council for Crime Prevention regarding the effects of the criminalization of illegal drug consumption is in progress. And it is with pleasure I can tell of how much we spend on preventative measures. It is really uplifting. This is where dividing line between social democrats and moderates goes. We see the whole picture while they speak only of punishment," says the new social Social Democrat Minister of Justice. What does Prime Minister Goran Persson feel about his new minister of justice having earlier criticised the governments drug policy? "I don't read Liberal Debatt," said Goran Persson when Dagens Nyheter asked for a comment on Monday morning.
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