Edited sentence: In 2001, a poll run by TEMO for the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, found that 96% of Swedes are strongly supportive of their restrictive drug policy.Sweden had the highest levels of illicit drug use in the 1970s but has long had the lowest levels of drug use in the developed world due to a sustained emphasis on education and rehabilitation.The proposal that countries must capitulate to the ‘overwhelming flood of illicit drug use’ by deserting prevention and rehabilitation for a more enlightened policy of harm reduction is shown to be without support when the example of Sweden is considered.When Sweden reduced spending on these elements its drug use rose, and restoring expenditure produced very low levels of use