Making up a new drug user from depenalization to repenalisation of drug users in Denmark.

BACKGROUND

In 2004 the Danish parliament repenalised possession of illicit drugs for personal use after it had been depenalised for 35 years. This article analyses the introduction of a more repressive drug policy in Denmark by studying how drug use and drug users were problematized in two key government whitepapers and how this problematization articulated a more general problematisation of 'a culture of intoxication' among young Danes. The analysis also shows how the policy change involved a change of governmentality away from a welfarist and towards a neo-liberal governmentality. The analysis particularly focuses on the implications of these problematisations for the constitution of young drug users a 'governable subjects'.

METHODS

The article takes its inspiration from research that has applied governmentality theory to analyse drug policy and particularly how the governmentalities that drug policies articulate involve different subjectifications of drug users. Within this overall framework the article also takes inspiration from Carol Bacchi's post-structural approach to policy analysis to show the assumptions about young people, drugs and how to govern them before and after the policy change.

RESULTS

The new drug policy articulated new ways of problematising drug use and the young drug user. Drug use was no longer defined as more or less socially conditioned but as an individual choice made by a rational actor. Punishment for violating the drug legislation should make the drug user responsible for his or her transgressions and deter others from making similar transgressions.

CONCLUSION

Research has shown that neo-liberal discourses can lead to more empowering and harm reduction oriented drug policies. This is not the case in Denmark. Here neo-liberal discourses led to a more repressive drug policy. Briefly accounting for some of the lived effects of the new drug policy, the article shows how socially disadvantaged parts of the Danish population bears the burden on the more punitive drug policy. This more repressive drug policy goes against the trend in several other European countries that have become less repressive. However, even if Danish drug policy has become more repressive, the legal measures taken against drug users in Denmark are still fairly 'mild' compared with the legal measures taken against drug users in other countries.