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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Denmark: Users fume as Denmark gets serious in weeding out cannabis Clare MacCarthy Financial Times, UK Tuesday 30 Mar 2004 Inspector Ole Wagner, head of the Copenhagen drug squad, has a logical explanation for the recent rise in the price of a popular local commodity. "The hash market reacts to supply and demand like anything else. It's exactly the same mechanism as for washing powder," he says. But pot, unlike Persil, is illegal in Denmark. The recent market volatility - which saw the street price of hash almost double in March to DKr80 ($13, E10.70, UKP7.20) a gram - derives from the government's new zero-tolerance policy. Since its inception in 2001, the liberal-conservative coalition has staged an anti-immigration and anti-crime programme. The anti-drugs stance is only one of a gamut of increasingly draconian measures that include the recent banning of a department of health sex education video for being "explicit". Danish society, the government says, is going to pot. Cannabis use is on the rise, according to a national board of health study. Almost half of all Danes under the age of 45 have tried the drug at some stage - up from 37 per cent a decade ago. But it is the correlation between age, cannabis use and social class that is worrying the government. Cannabis users between the ages of 30 and 44 are more likely to be unemployed. But cannabis use by 16 to 30-year-olds is most prevalent among the higher social classes - the offspring of doctors, lawyers and company directors - coincidentally the centre-right administration's core voters. The youth of today, according to the government, attaches neither stigma nor danger to the recreational use of soft drugs. And this, believes Lene Espersen, Denmark's 38-year-old justice minister, is misguided because a teenager's first puff of marijuana can be the start of a slippery slide into a life of crime. "It's very short-sighted to allow people a little abuse because they often end up being big criminals," she says. Last Friday, three decades of laissez faire came to a close as the government introduced a parliamentary bill detailing tough new penalties for cannabis crimes. Users - who in the past received only a police caution for possession - now face mandatory fines for even the smallest amounts of cannabis. Dealers caught with larger amounts face longer prison sentences and the police will be granted new powers to weed out cannabis use in prisons. Denmark's U-turn on drugs contrasts with policy changes in other developed countries. Britain recently downgraded cannabis in its schedule of illicit drugs, claiming it was pointless to pretend it was as dangerous as heroin or cocaine. Portugal decriminalised marijuana possession in 2001 and Canada has moved in a similar direction. Many Danish cannabis fans are outraged. On Friday, while the new legislation was being put before parliament, several hundred Danes held a noisy protest outside, singing and puffing marijuana joints. The police kept a discreet watch on the "smoke-in" and made no attempt to confiscate the free samples being distributed. "This law goes against Denmark's traditional tolerance. Denmark is the Holland of the north," says Klaus Trier Tuxen, chairman of the Hemp party. His group, which is dedicated to legalising cannabis, intends to stand in the next general election and already claims several hundred members "from millionaires to bums". The impact of Ms Espersen's tough approach is most keenly felt in Christiania, an oasis of cannabis and counterculture in the heart of the Danish capital. Until a few weeks ago, Christiania, a 34-hectare former army barracks taken over by squatters in 1971, was Copenhagen's second biggest tourist attraction. Its eccentric hotchpotch of cafes, clubs, restaurants and wacky architecture drew busloads of foreign tourists. But Christiania was also home to Europe's largest and most visible hash market, Pusher Street - a cobblestoned alley lined on both sides by market stalls selling cannabis but no harder drugs. Inspector Wagner estimates that Dkr500m worth of cannabis moved through Pusher Street a year. This month, several hundred police raided the place, seized assets and made more than 60 arrests. Like many residents of Christiania, Ole Lykke, a photographer, readily acknowledges that Pusher Street had got out of control. He welcomes its taming. But like others, he is worried about the implications of the zero-tolerance regime. "Prohibition is the same as state subsidies to criminals," he says. Holland's coffee shop culture would suit Denmark better, he believes. Even Inspector Wagner admits he is fighting a losing battle: "It would be naive to think we can annihilate the hash market. As long as there's a buyer there'll be a seller."
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