U.S. Department of State
1996 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, March 1997

United States Department of State

Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs

SWEDEN

I. Summary

II. Status of Country

The Government of Sweden (GOS) monitors imports and exports of all precursor and essential chemicals. The Swedish Medical Products Agency is responsible for precursor and essential chemical controls.

Money laundering is a crime under Swedish law, which requires banks and other financial institutions to identify new customers and register large currency transactions (over $15,700) with the Swedish central bank and report any suspicious individuals/transactions to the police. The government is preparing additional legislation in 1997 to tighten existing money laundering controls.

III. Country Actions Against Drugs in 1996

Sweden participates in a number of international antidrug fora, including the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the UNDCP, and the Dublin Group. During the year, Sweden actively promoted reform of multilateral drug control activities in the UNDCP by holding seminars and meetings involving other nations. Almost $1 million was set aside for this and other reform-related efforts. In December, Sweden hosted an informal preparatory meeting for the UNGA special session on drugs in 1998. According to the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Sweden pledged approximately SEK 28 million (about $4.3 million) in FY96 to the UNDCP, making it one of the largest donors.

An additional $1.4 million was set aside for bilateral work against drugs by the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA). In FY96, Sweden's contribution to the UN World Health Organization's substance abuse program was about $4 million.

"European Cities Against Drugs," an alliance of major cities that espouses zero tolerance policies and no liberalization, is a growing Europe-wide movement founded in Sweden. The alliance maintains its secretariat in Stockholm and organized a high-level conference in June with over a hundred participants, including officials from the US.

Accomplishments. With its accession to the EU on January 1, 1995, Sweden began a closer, more formal collaboration with law enforcement and judicial authorities of its EU partners. Accordingly, the GOS passed police and customs controls legislation in 1996. Swedish customs officers patrol Sweden's borders with EU countries and inspect persons and goods when they have reason. However, with EU accession, Sweden downsized its force of customs officers by 750 positions, a reduction of 25 percent. Within EU councils, Sweden advocates zero-tolerance policies.

In 1996, a Swedish customs official was assigned to Paris. Swedish police and customs drug liaison officers are in The Hague, Bangkok, Athens, Copenhagen, Lisbon, London, Warsaw, Tallinn, Riga, Bonn, Budapest and Moscow. Sweden has a customs officer with the EU's European drugs intelligence unit in the Hague, an organization that many expect will become part of a future "Europol."

Work is under way for the passage of legislation -- probably in 1997 -- to make it punishable to drive under the influence of illicit narcotics or certain medical drugs. Another project is making designer drugs illegal through new legislation. The government is aware that it lacks statistics on cases of drug-related deaths; it intends to address this problem in 1997.

Agreements and Treaties. Sweden is a party to the 1988 UN Convention and is fully meeting the Convention's goals and objectives. Sweden also is a party to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, as amended by the 1972 Protocol, and to the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Sweden has also acceded to the World Customs Organization's 1977 International Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance for the Prevention, Investigation, and Repression of Customs Offences. Annex 10 of this Convention, which Sweden has accepted, deals with assistance in action against the smuggling of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.

Sweden has bilateral customs agreements with the US, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, France, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Spain, Poland, Russia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Hungary. Similar agreements negotiated in 1995 with Latvia, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia were ratified and came into force in 1996. Sweden cooperates with the US under a 1984 extradition treaty.

Law Enforcement Efforts. From January through November, police and customs made 9,781 individual seizures, compared to 11,317 seizures in all of 1995. The drugs most often seized were amphetamines, which surpassed cannabis/hashish seizures for the third year in a row.

Corruption. Corruption is very rare and when discovered is consistently punished.

Cultivation/Production. No illicit drugs are known to be cultivated or produced in significant amounts in Sweden. One amphetamine lab was seized and destroyed in 1996. Police attribute this to tight controls on precursor chemicals and to a relatively low street price for amphetamine and other drugs. It is more profitable for criminals to smuggle drugs into Sweden than to produce them in Sweden in clandestine labs.

Drug Flow/Transit. Sweden is a destination for illicit narcotics from Poland, Denmark (originally produced in the Netherlands and Belgium), Finland (from Russia) and the Baltic nations, especially Estonia, as well as from South America and Asia. The drugs enter the country among commercial goods, over land, by mail, by air and by ferry. Authorities are particularly concerned about the increase in illicit drug smuggling from Poland, the Baltics and Russia. The Netherlands is the source for approximately half of all amphetamines seized, but increasing amounts of amphetamines originate in Poland.

Heroin from Turkey is transported into Sweden by trucks through Germany, often by citizens of the former Yugoslavia. Heroin from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran often passes through Eastern Europe on its way to the Nordic markets, including Sweden. Cocaine is most often smuggled into Sweden by airplane passengers from South America, via other EU airports; a new trend is to have criminal groups in eastern Europe involved as well. Customs officials believe their new access to flight booking computers will result in more seizures.

Demand Reduction. The government maintains a strict approach on drug control issues. The Swedish National Institute for Public Health coordinates all drug preventive efforts and subsidizes drug use prevention programs in the private sector. The dissemination of information on the dangers of drug abuse is compulsory in Swedish schools. Political, religious, sports and other organizations receive government subsidies to implement information and activity programs aimed at educating youth and parents on the dangers of drug abuse. Various private organizations also are active in drug abuse prevention and public information programs. However, recent opinion polls show a more tolerant attitude to drugs, especially toward the use of cannabis and ecstasy, particularly among the young.

The GOS emphasizes drug abuse prevention combined with restrictive drug policy, enforcement measures, and drug rehabilitation. For example, to combat the newest drug, ecstacy, a special police unit of 15 officers in downtown Stockholm has been formed go to nightspots and "rave" parties to identify young newcomers to the rave culture who are abusing and/or selling ecstacy. Under Swedish law, individuals who abuse drugs can be sentenced to drug treatment.

IV. U.S. Policy Initiatives and Programs

Bilateral Cooperation. Swedish cooperation with US law enforcement authorities is excellent.

The Road Ahead. The USG looks forward to further strengthening its already good counternarcotics cooperation with Sweden, particularly in the broad Nordic-Baltics and NIS context.