‘More cure and less control’ or ‘more care and lower costs’? Recent changes in services for problem drug users in Stockholm and Sweden

Abstract

This article deals with the development of drug services in Stockholm, Sweden since the mid-1990s. Initially, data were collected as part of a European Union comparative study of the development of drug services in six major European cities. However, the present article uses these data to analyse to what extent the traditional ‘Swedish model’ of dealing with narcotic drugs can be said to have come to a crossroad. The article describes and analyses changes in drug use, and in the structure, organization and utilization of social services based, as well as healthcare-based drug services in Stockholm during the past decade. As pointed out in the article, the ‘drug-free society’ is still the ultimate goal of Swedish drug policy. However, as the Stockholm example hints, when it comes to the care and treatment of individual drug problems, there seems to be an on-going shift, from in-patient treatment towards measures such as substitution treatment, outpatient care and housing. The article discusses whether these changes signify a softening of Sweden's restrictive drug policy, or whether they rather point to a ‘re-medicalization’ of drug services, and shift in focus from ‘cure’ and social re-integration towards a focus on ‘care’ and on attempts to avoid ‘public nuisance’.