Danish cannabis policy in practice: the closing of ‘Pusher Street’ and the cannabis market in Copenhagen

Abstract

During the last three or four years, Danish drug policy has been reversed from liberal to more repressive, especially in 2003, when the Danish liberal±conservative government that had been in oce since 2001 launched their ocial policy on drugs, The Fight Against Drugs: action plan against drug misuse. This action plan emphasised a more repressive drug policy in which priority was given to law enforcement, although an expansion of treatment facilities and prevention initiatives was also planned. The overall aim was to tighten the laws on drug dealing and drug use and to increase the penalties for these o€ences. The plan explicitly stated that the policy was to take a zero tolerance approach towards any kind of drug dealing. The fact that the liberal±conservative wing of the Danish parliament holds this attitude is not new. Storgaard argues that the di€erent drug control policies of this wing (which do not di€erentiate between users and dealers, or between `hard' and `soft' drugs) and the centre-left (which do) have been a battle®eld in Danish drug policy for the past 30 years. The centre-left wing, headed by the Social Democratic Party, dominated Danish drug policy until 2001, when the present liberal±conservative government came into oce. Although the Social Democratic Party did tighten some aspects of their drug policy, whether they would have continued to do so to the extent that the liberal±conservatives subsequently did is a matter for speculation. One aspect of the present government's more repressive drug policy was to crack down on cannabis dealing as well as cannabis use. The focus of this chapter is the closing of `Pusher Street', one of the most well-