NCJ Number
87139
Editor(s)
A Solarz,
J Andersson
Date Published
1982
Length
206 pages
Annotation
Twenty-one articles explore trends since the 1960's in drug use among juveniles and inmates in Sweden, as well as incidence patterns in drug-related crime. They discuss the injury to both society and the individual of drug use and review Swedish experiences with methadone treatment for heroin addicts.
Abstract
Several data sources are used to complete a picture of drug use among Swedish juveniles. These include self-report surveys conducted yearly of sixth and ninth graders to determine how widespread drug use is among children and to assess how frequent the use and how hard the drugs and surveys of cross-sections of the juvenile population. Surveys conducted among military recruits and jail and prison inmates are also presented. Overall, drug use appears to be decreasing slightly and, where it does occur, happens mainly among urban youth. Legislation against drug use, possession, smuggling, and sale is reviewed along with reforms being considered. A section on drug-related crime and its incidence from 1969-81 considers the reliability of police statistics, looks at the numbers of persons convicted of drug crimes, and discusses the incidence of links to drugs in crimes reported but not classed as narcotics crime. One article comments on the number of persons under the influence of drugs arrested for traffic offenses. Another discusses the Government's forensic labs and procedures for determining drug content in blood and body fluids. The success of Swedish methadone maintenance programs for rehabilitating heroin addicts in relation to relatively poor results in the United States and other countries is discussed. Additional articles considered the overall cost to society of drug use and the incidence of drug use and drug-related crime in Japan, West Germany, the United States, and Great Britain as reflected in official statistics. Footnotes, graphs, and tables are included.