War on People who Use Drugs

This book explores the outcomes of Sweden’s aim to create a ‘drug-free society’ on the lived realities, health, and welfare of people who use drugs, and on the dynamics of Swedish drug use. Drawing on a wealth of empirical data, including extensive interview testimony and participant observation from years of fieldwork conducted in Sweden, the book debunks the widely-believed myth that Sweden is a progressive, liberal, inclusive state. In contrast to its liberal reputation, Sweden has criminalised the use of drugs and allows for compulsory treatment for those with drug dependencies. The work argues that Swedish law and policy cannot be demonstrated to have decreased drug use as intended, with the law used instead as a means with which to displace people who use drugs from public spaces in Sweden’s cities. And where the law has failed in its ambition to decrease drug use, Swedish law and policy have increased and exacerbated the problems, dangers, and harms that can be associated with it. People who use drugs in Sweden experience considerable and endemic difficulties with health, violence, abuse, and social exclusion, stigma, and discrimination as a result of Sweden’s drug laws, policies, and discourses.

Jay Levy’s compelling study should be mandatory reading for anyone who still harbours the notion that Sweden is a progressive paragon. Compulsory blood testing, police harassment, child custody used as leverage, basic services made arbitrary and conditional: Levy counts the costs, and the casualties, of Sweden’s search for a ‘drug-free society’.Dr Philip Howell, Senior Lecturer, Department of Geography, University of CambridgeLevy’s insightful and well-written analysis of the harms of Swedish drug policy exposes the underlying common rationales between the history of social engineering and the nation’s war on drugs. Rigorously researched and excellently written, the book ultimately advances understandings of drug use and people who use them, effectively outlining the reasons for why we must re-imagine our approaches to drugs, drug use, and the people that use drugs in new and radical ways.Judy Chang, Executive Director, International Network of People who use Drugs (INPUD)

Jay Levy is Policy and Advocacy Officer at the International Network of People who Use Drugs Secretariat, a human rights and health NGO based in London. He has freelanced as a consultant and researcher in the areas of advocacy and policy, including for the Global Network of Sex Work Projects. He previously worked at the African Medical and Research Foundation. His research interests include the outcomes of sex work and drug legislation and discourse; feminist, gender, and queer theory; harm reduction, HIV/AIDS, STI, and blood-borne infection policy and law.