Denmark

The History of Danish Drug Policy

Over the years, Danish drug policy has reflected changing definitions of drug problems and changing legislation and regulations. Modern Danish drug policy was conceived in 1955 with the Act on Euphoriant Substances, which for the first time made possession of illegal drugs a criminal offence—punishable by up to two years of imprisonment. The new legislation was a response to a drug epidemic in the vice districts of Copenhagen involving a few hundred people using mainly methadone and amphetamine. Generally, however, a few thousand people were addicted to drugs, mainly members of the middle and upper classes. Drug addiction was seen as a psychological pathology that was subject to psychiatric drug treatment.

From the early 1960s, cannabis use was disseminated among young people along with other aspects of the new youth culture. Thus in 1970, a national school survey showed that 24 percent of the respondents had used cannabis at least once. The new drug problem differed from the drug problems of the 1940s and 1950s and was seen as a symptom of social deprivation and maladaptation.

Drug treatment was subsequently transferred to the social welfare system and a drug-free psychosocial treatment system was developed. The Danish Parliament responded to the new drug problem in two ways: (1) by adding a new Section to the penal code that made professional drug dealing and trafficking punishable by up to six years of imprisonment, while small-scale dealing remained punishable under the Act on Euphoriant Substances; and (2) by de-penalizing possession of illegal drugs for personal use to avoid criminalization of the many young drug users. These changes created a bifurcation in Danish drug policy that was maintained for 35 years. Consequently, penal policy addressed drug supply, and welfare policy addressed drug demand. During these years, penal sanctions against drug supply were raised, drug treatment became more diversified, including the introduction of methadone maintenance treatment, and from the mid-1980s, harm reduction was introduced with needle-exchange programs and easier access to methadone treatment.

Current Danish Drug Policy

In the 1990s a rise in drug-related deaths, the introduction of new drugs—particularly ecstasy, and new evidence of harmful effects of cannabis led to a change in Danish drug policy in 2003. The changes were presented in the drug action plan—The Fight [Page 199]Against Drugs—using rhetoric similar to the war on drugs in the United States. The new policy once again made possession for personal consumption punishable, raised sentences for drug trafficking and drug dealing to a maximum of 16 years, made it mandatory for prisons to offer drug treatment to inmates, and introduced a guarantee that gave drug users the right to treatment within two weeks of application. The new line in Danish drug policy changed the balance between repression and welfare by making drug demand an object of penal policy for the first time in 35 years.

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