What European country is the most anti-drugs?

What European country is the most anti-drugs?

[Joe Duffy]

I heard Sweden but I cannot confirm.

[jcdjinn]

I've heard Sweden also, but I don't understand why they have such strict policies.

[D.U.M.B]

Avoid Ireland too

[JDreaming]

England's drug policy has always been "like America, but slightly worse". Such as in the wake of Operation WebTryp, when all the research chemical vendors in the US and England were getting busted under the new analogue laws... in America the vendors were thrown in jail while the buyers were pretty much left alone. In England they arrested distributors, as well as more than 20 individual purchasers whose names came up in seized financial records.

England seems like a rough place to explore psychoactives.

[English_T]

Originally Posted by JDreaming

England's drug policy has always been "like America, but slightly worse". Such as in the wake of Operation WebTryp, when all the research chemical vendors in the US and England were getting busted under the new analogue laws... in America the vendors were thrown in jail while the buyers were pretty much left alone. In England they arrested distributors, as well as more than 20 individual purchasers whose names came up in seized financial records.

England seems like a rough place to explore psychoactives.

The US didn't have a particular law to cover 'Research Chemicals' , England did - it was to cover analogues of LSD and MDMA (outlawing PIHKAL basically).

22 english were arrested after a US company was raided and records of english customers found; however, this was just 'to send out a LOUD and CLEAR message to the country that buying research chemicals WAS illegal and was an attempt to stop the importation of drugs in this manner in the future. I doubt if any of those arrested received anything more than a fine. The american guy running the business got 410 years!!!!!!!!


England is very 'mellow' when it comes to drug sentencing - most users never end up in court or even get arrested. IF you do end up in court, the court is understanding and realises that a prison sentence is NOT going to do anyone any good at all. THANK GOD England has learnt a lot from its past mistakes, it has moved on a lot from those draconian days.
America seems to be waaaaaaay strict in sentences, really is quite scary how ones life can be seriously fucked by the courts.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Stor...492457,00.html

[griffin3141]

Sweden 100%. Their government has proposed mandatory random drug tests for student. Don't know if it ever happened but the message was definitely there.

[Alicia]

uk is more open-minded then us. despite its pushy drug ignorance which is based on fiction rather then actual harm reduction so much so it makes the dea a better option then talk to frank, but u know thick as shit people that belief in myths tend to make the ignorant believe, makes swia happy to be herself.

[smark]

Well heres my thought on this subject, most countries are anti-drugs and like most people here seem to have agreed on Sweden is the most anti-drugs.

Having done a fair bit of travelling and living round Europe i have found nowhere near as bad as Bayern in Germany, im not talking about the whole of Germany just the 'state' of Bayern, heres a few examples:

Swim worked with someone who got busted with a small amount of weed, to get himself off the hook he basically named swim as the dealer and supplied 22g of hash over a 9 month period to him. It was the other way round, the grass was supplying swim with weed. Swim was never arrested, questioned or formally charged until swim recieved a letter from the local court to say he was being charged with supplying 22g of hash and the fine was either €1400 or if unable to pay a month in jail and was due to appear in court on xx.
Swim got a laywer and went not guilty and ended up in court. Swim had told the laywer the truth, that the rat had beeen supplying swim, exactly what he supplied swim with(class a-c) and the rough amount. Swim was willing to use this in court but the laywer nearly had a heart attack and told swim that he couldnt as swim would then be charged with possesion of all swims purchases and after a quick look at a book this equaled jailtime. Swims laywer said its best to go guilty to try to get a reduction in fine(typical laywer wanting paid for doing nothing). Swim said no way lets go to court with the story that i drove the weasle to visit friends of his sometimes and had no idea that this p***k was involved with drugs in any way. Swims laywer agreed that he should stick to this story, admit nothing and dont mention that swim had bought drugs from the 'Witness' (i loved that one, witness for the prosecution).
Anyway big day came, swim was in court with laywer and translator, charges were read, swim pleaded not guilty, gave his explanation to the court. Then the witness was called, the court was informed that the witness had already been charged in connection to the offence and fined €250. Swim was not amused as swim was looking at a fine of €1400. Witness was informed by the judge that if he changed his statement etc he would be prosecuted with some offence blah blah(swim has a fair bit of german and got the jist of things with the translators help). First thing the witness does was to say that it wasnt true that swim DID NOT supply said amount, that Swim had a car and he had the contacts so swim was given dope to drive him to collect. Swim was grinning like a chesire cat expecting to hear case dismissed, not guilty etc but no. After a debate between the judge, prosecution and swims laywer swim learned that he was not off the hook and prosecution wanted swim charged with possesion and fined the full amount, judge disagreed with prosecution which helped swim. Swim got upset and asked the prosecution to supply a) physical evidence that swim had indeed possesed the dope and b) a witness that was reliable and did change his story the minute he was giving evidence. Prosecution got pissed off, swims laywer and translator asked for a few minutes with swim alone outside. Swim was informed that he was fucked either way by both laywer and translator, swim had 2 options, take the judges decision and get a small fine or go not guilty which would mean going to a higher court costing swim more laywers fees plus the fact that if the witness was eventually forced to tell the truth swim was looking at jail and a massive fine. Swim unhappily took the laywers advice and took the judges decision which was a fine of €450, no criminal record etc as the judge decided i had been involved in some small way with the purchase of drugs and couldnt be let off with nothing. Swim was informed that the witness was in trouble as he changed his statement etc and if i wanted i could make a formal complaint and sue him for slander. Swim wanted nothing further to do with this and keep unwanted attention from the filth away from swim. Total cost to swim €1700, expensive lesson.

Swim has a friend who had just finished the last of his coke in a nightclub toilets but was caught by security as they have a nasty habit of looking over into cubicles if they think something dodgy was going on. Security held swims friend until the police arrived and searched him. They found a small EMPTY glass vial in his pocket. This was tested and found to have contained cocaine. As they couldnt determine exactly how much swims friend had taken they decided to estimate it at a gram. Swims friend was formally charged with possesion of 1g of cocaine, fined €600, informed if he had a driving license he would have been banned and he was now a drug addict in the eyes of the law.

Swim has learned that even testing positive for drugs(i.e roadside piss-test etc) no matter how small it is this gives the cops a right to a search warrant for your house etc and generally cause you a lot of hassle.

Swim has also learned that the Undercover policemen are allowed to consume drugs with suspects if it helps gather evidence.

If swiy is in a car with swim and swim has possesion of drugs but swiy doesnt know and is stopped and caught by the police that swiy gets f**ked too even if swim informs the police that swiy had no knowledge.

But swim would like to point out that these draconian laws only apply in Bayern(technically Bayern can still hang people!!). Had this happened to swim in say berlin or hamburg it would have never went to court. Swims friend who was charged with an estimated possesion(loved that) would have been told to beat it and not get caught again in the future.

Well swim knows its a bit of a long read but a bit of an eye opener and swim advises anyone visiting Germany to avoid even trying to score in Bayern(yes even asking gets you in trouble). Go to frankfurt,berlin,hamburg its much more relaxed and cheaper(swim knows prices cant be mentioned but its roughly double to triple the price in Bayern for most things)

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Good post, a bit boring with the court details,but i guess it serves very well to ilustrate
	Useful information, good to know if I visit Germany

[ProtectedByTheGods]

I can confirm that Bayern is a nasty place, amongst other things their conservatism
and tough drug laws.


In Italy they have become rather strict lately, people getting charged with dealing
when caught with as little as 8g of hash or something like that. That's the impression I got from the northern regions though, suppose the south is less uptight.

[Benga]

France would have to pretty high on that list. technically discussing drugs in the way it is done in this forum could fall under the article L630 which prohibits "presenting drugs in a favorable way", read in a non negative way, and "incitation to drug use"
this was used against items with cannabis leaf designs in the past, for instance...

France's prohibited substance list isn't the toughest in the world, but french society, legal and political stances towards substance use and general education of the public on the subject (things are change thanks to internet access) make it a really backwards and conservative, and often very hypocritical country...

[voodoo child]

France would have to pretty high on that list. technically discussing drugs in the way it is done in this forum could fall under the article L630 which prohibits "presenting drugs in a favorable way",

So that means you can't praise drugs in France? What do they do about all the music out there that's glorifying drugs, ban it?

[Benga]

Originally Posted by voodoo child

So that means you can't praise drugs in France? What do they do about all the music out there that's glorifying drugs, ban it?

yes, that's pretty much what happens, if it's in french it can be banned,
last famous examples of such tensions was with the group "billy the kick" who released a song called "mangez moi" (eat me) about hunting and eating psilocybian mushrooms. the song became a major hit and the lyrics had to be modified after pressure from the police. other examples are rap groups, with songs refering to cannabis etc...but this is of course correlated with the group's public exposure. underground / indie stuff will be fine, but hit the charts and you'll be in for trouble. of course a lot of stuff doesn't get caught but even major singers such as Serge Gainsbourg did raise some LE eyebrows.

the cannabis leaf t-shirt hunt was ridiculous. this was some years ago and with the current rediscovery of textile hemp, i doubt the government would try such a stunt nowadays, but you never know....

the publishers specialised in cannabis/ psychoactive litterature "editions du lezard" did face(are still facing) a lot of legal problems.

b

[Alfa]

I may have overlooked it, but couldn't find a thread about prohibition and the legal situation in France. It would be nice to have a dedicated thread for this.

[Benga]

Originally Posted by Alfa

I may have overlooked it, but couldn't find a thread about prohibition and the legal situation in France. It would be nice to have a dedicated thread for this.

yes this is something to look into. France probably isn't the most repressive country but still has a quite a few rather reactionary laws and stances on social issues...substance use is just one example among many.

b

[Triple7]

I won't say Sweden is the most strict, since I have no clue about it. But I'll give you guys something to reflect over.

We had a government change, and with it, it seems the police became stricter. Yesterday, one man was arrested, just because he had muscles. To me and many other SWIM's he doesn't look big as a person who gyms, but he is bigger than the average male among the population. The man does look a bit bloated. He left a club, a police woman approached on the street asking if he gyms, he replied 'yes' and she arrested him for use of steroids. He got locked in detention and had to piss into a cup. The man denied any use of steroids and the test showed negative, so he got released.

Last weekend there was a reggae festival, 246 persons were arrested for posession of drugs. I guess somewhere about 10-20k attend the festival.. so we can say that over 1% of the attendants were arrested.

When there is a outdoors rave, and they find drugs, then the landlord may get prosecuted for drug sales unless he testifies against those who rented his land. It could be that the police try to make the landlord to say that the ravers used his land without his permission. This used to be common about 4-5 years ago.

In worst cases 1 of 3 ravers get searched and questioned at a party. Lately, it seems anyone carrying drugs (for example 0.05g hashish) will get immediately detained for a few days and have ones house searched.

There are thousands of Swedes that are involved in some rat program. One gets paid to rat and some of the rats use drugs themselves while their officers turn a blind eye. Many of the rats take drugs themselves. And there are informers making a good living to rat about other dealers. (And in the end some dissapointed rats goto jail themselves).

OK, everything isn't totally bad. There does exists some liberalism.

There are several stories like people being completely stoned and talking to the police, without the police caring. There are several stories where persons carrying lot of drugs on them, the police have only taken a few pills as evidence and then left them alone on the street with ~100 pills mdma in the pocket. There seems to be lot of people that get caught, and don't get prosecuted. While on the other hand, one guy claimed he had to pay a fine of 770€/1k$ for a single pill of valium.

Wheel of fortune, isn't it?

[English_T]

MAN!! certainly sounds strict to me!!

Surely arresting someone because he 'looks like he might be using steroids' is a total abuse of power and cannot be legal at all, can it??? Sweden is part of the EU and as such I'm sure he and many others could take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights.

[smark]

Originally Posted by English_T

MAN!! certainly sounds strict to me!!

Surely arresting someone because he 'looks like he might be using steroids' is a total abuse of power and cannot be legal at all, can it??? Sweden is part of the EU and as such I'm sure he and many others could take their cases to the European Court of Human Rights.

Well you could provided you had absoloutley nothing to do with drugs and if your in Germany dont mind being constantly watched by the cops, phone-calls recorded, stopped everytime you step in the car and drug tested and never having your bedtime spliff again

If you make a fuss then be prepared for the consequences, the pigs in Britain arent unknown for their ability to pick a charge out the air and f**k you over with it.

Plus i found out the hard way cops in Bayern can charge you without evidence

[English_T]

I've found the police in England, generally, pretty good and fair; however, if you act like an asshole, start ranting and raving, calling them 'pigs', swearing at them etc..then be prepared to be royally fucked because they will hit you with every possible offence they can think of - if in a car, they will check lights, condition, tax, etc, whats more they will enjoy it as it is their ONLY legal way they can get back at you. Reality is, if you call anyone else an asshole/pig/wanker they would punch your fucking lights out and the police are human also and they would like to 'retaliate' also BUT if they did, they would lose their career and so they USE the law to their advantage. Whereas a polite person would get 'let off' and told to fix his car , make sure he gets some tax, told not to do drugs in the area etc, an idiot would be arrested at the very least, kept for 24 hours and possibly end up with a fine to boot...and guess what? ....serves them right! If you're an asshole then be prepared to be treated like one - the police in the UK have to fill in a shitload of forms after making an arrest that will take them off the street for a few hours, they do not like to do so unless they have good reason.

I got caught by CID with 2 £20 wraps of Heroin, 2 £20 rocks of crack and a needle actually in a vein in my hand - I told them I was at University and had a bit of a problem with H/crack that I was getting it under control and was receiving treatment via methadone...they were great, they said, "..to be honest, we can't be bothered with the whole drug thing, you're only a user, we're after 'bigger fish'....don't come into this area injecting drugs again, we're trying to keep things 'nice'". I was allowed to go and also allowed to keep all my drugs, the driver of the car was arrested as he had 15 warrants for his arrest, he'd lied about his name (gave his brothers) but they found photo ID in the dash!!

[smark]

Originally Posted by English_T

I've found the police in England, generally, pretty good and fair; however, if you act like an asshole, start ranting and raving, calling them 'pigs', swearing at them etc..then be prepared to be royally fucked because they will hit you with every possible offence they can think of - if in a car, they will check lights, condition, tax, etc, whats more they will enjoy it as it is their ONLY legal way they can get back at you. Reality is, if you call anyone else an asshole/pig/wanker they would punch your fucking lights out and the police are human also and they would like to 'retaliate' also BUT if they did, they would lose their career and so they USE the law to their advantage. Whereas a polite person would get 'let off' and told to fix his car , make sure he gets some tax, told not to do drugs in the area etc, an idiot would be arrested at the very least, kept for 24 hours and possibly end up with a fine to boot...and guess what? ....serves them right! If you're an asshole then be prepared to be treated like one - the police in the UK have to fill in a shitload of forms after making an arrest that will take them off the street for a few hours, they do not like to do so unless they have good reason.

I got caught by CID with 2 £20 wraps of Heroin, 2 £20 rocks of crack and a needle actually in a vein in my hand - I told them I was at University and had a bit of a problem with H/crack that I was getting it under control and was receiving treatment via methadone...they were great, they said, "..to be honest, we can't be bothered with the whole drug thing, you're only a user, we're after 'bigger fish'....don't come into this area injecting drugs again, we're trying to keep things 'nice'". I was allowed to go and also allowed to keep all my drugs, the driver of the car was arrested as he had 15 warrants for his arrest, he'd lied about his name (gave his brothers) but they found photo ID in the dash!!

Head to Bonnie Scotland where the cops dispense with all that tiresome paperwork by chucking you in the back of the van and taking you somewhere quiet for a bit of a going over...

Germany has that many laws that its kind of hard not to break one. Let them breatalyse you in the street and if your over the limit they can ban you from driving as your considered part of traffic(spent a night in the cells for refusing the breathtest on that one), you can get a driving ban for crossing the road away from a pedestrian crossing or on one if its not green,drunk or sober. They can also fine you for walking on a cycle path(which is about half the pavement in most places). Being found to be under the influence of drugs gives them the right to a search warrant for your home.
My personal favourite is they can charge you and take you to court without arresting you, evidence, searching your home on someones says so. You say someone sold you a Klick of Coke you get fucked for possession(greatly reduced of course)and they get shafted for dealing even if youve never seen so much as a line of charlie in your life. I found that out after someone got busted and i got named as the supplier although it was the other way round, but you cant use that in court in case they say the amount was more than it actually was. I had to plead guilty to ' being involved in the purchase of narcotics' even after the witness said he lied i just drove him to friends in case the truth came out regarding the amounts and substances involved otherwise id be looking at a 6x6 box. Britain has a fairer court system but the cops arent averse to giving you a bit of a kicking, Germanys legal system is a joke but cops arent known for sticking the boot in as its against the law and theyre seriously anal about the law and so honest sometimes you think your still tripping from that acid you dropped

Your right about the ranting and raving, if your up to something you shouldnt be or got something on you then be polite.

You got lucky being let go with your gear, its common in Scotland for them to threaten to take you down the station for a nice 24hr rattle unless you drop a name( take the cells as you can request a Dr who will give you something to take the rattle at bay, lus grasses have a short-term life span).