Prohibition till varje pris? - En analys av den svenska kontrollen av nätdroger

The Swedish penal law on narcotics (NSL) governs the control of narcotics through criminal law alongside other relevant laws, such as law on penalties for smuggling. NSL has since it came into effect undergone adjustments, all of them in a penalty sharpening direction. Today, Sweden has a repressive and hard-controlling legislation on narcotics in comparison to other European countries. As drugs bought on the internet during the 21st century made their way into the Swedish society an urgent need to control these drugs occurred. Problems such as quick development amongst these drugs and possibilities to change the molecular structure of them to avoid prosecution resulted in a public investigation on the possibilities of generic classification of narcotics. As the investigation presented great risks with the legal security if such a classification would come into effect, control of drugs bought on the internet through generic classification was not considered an alternative. Instead, these drugs are controlled trough the penal law on narcotics, causing a specific drug to be classified as narcotics by the government to become punishable, which is a longwinded process. Many drugs bought on the internet are, as a result, excluded from blamableness, and are consequently legal. Through SFS 2011:111 authorities have since 2011 been given the possibility to destroy drugs bought on the internet discovered upon confiscation. The effect of the law on the amount of drugs bought on the internet seems to be marginal, and might even on a theoretical level have the opposite effect. However, the law seems to have an expressive function, by which means that the distribution and purchase of drugs on the internet are trough the law pointed out as reprehensible actions. The firm legislation and action plans on narcotics have become the state’s tool of control to practice social control on its population through threats of penalty. The current control of drugs bought online seems to partly have its explanation in the Swedish history of drugs, partly in how the discussion on narcotics have been contemplated throughout the years. The legislation was resided in a time when Sweden had recently become a welfare state based on rights and responsibilities, where there were no room for drug addicts and addiction. Also, the contemplation on alcohol might have imprinted this need of control. The temperance movement was amongst the contributing factors for the issue on legislation of narcotics to become a political matter in the 1960ies, and the issue of narcotics was by the government created the same way as the issue on alcohol was by the temperance movement. Sweden has, also historically, constructed the image of an addict in a specific way, which has made the legal and social field to become responsible for the issue on narcotics. Although this image has been a matter of change during recent years, the historical construction of the addict seems to still exist in current action plans on narcotics. The rapid development of drugs bought on the internet during recent years and the will to control these through the traditional penal laws on narcotics has come to jeopardize the legal security. One example of this is the penalty assessment in court of drugs bought on the internet. Another example is the recent possibility for the court to control drugs bought on the internet through other crimes such as manslaughter, made possible by a sentence called Fentanyldomen. A fundamental and great challenge for the state and legislator in the light of a ruptured legal security seems to be to maintain the legitimacy of the drug politics and criminal law. With a reduced legitimacy, the state most probably will struggle to control the behavior of the population in a dismissive direction from narcotics through criminalization.