As of next week, supervised injection (and other drug consumption) sites will be legal in Denmark. Earlier this month, the Danish Parliament voted 63-43 to allow the facilities to open, including language that instructs police and prosecutors to not search, seize, and prosecute users in possession of "small quantities" of drugs.
the supervised injection site in Vancouver (vch.ca)
The new law not only allows for supervised injection sites, but also allows Danish municipalities to establish facilities for smoking or snorting heroin or crack cocaine.
The law was impelled by the activism of the Danish Street Lawyers, who describe themselves as "hard core harm reducers," and who published a legal paper and press release during last year's election campaign calling for drug consumption rooms and arguing that the only obstacles to them were political -- not legal. Then, just days before last September's election, the nonprofit group Social Entrepreneur opened a mobile drug consumption room in Copenhagen, drawing more attention to the issue.
After a left-wing minority government won the election, the Liberal Alliance, one of the governing coalition's members, pushed for movement on drug consumption rooms, and after six months of inaction, the government finally introduced a bill in April. But the Street Lawyers objected to provisions of that bill, including one that required drug consumption room staff to report to police on their clients' whereabouts, and the bill was amended to remove the language.
Denmark will now join a small but growing number of countries that allow supervised injection sites as a harm reduction measure. Those countries include Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.
Deafening Silence
I wholeheartedly welcome Denmark's decision to make consumption rooms legal. However, as an European citizen who looks in horror at the heinous consequences Prohibition and the so-called War on Drugs policies have had on drug producing and transit countries, I cannot help but feel ashamed by the total lack of support shown so far by European countries for the call made by Latin America to engage in an open debate to find alternatives to current drugs policies.
Why have we not heard a single word of encouragement, let alone support, from European countries that have "quasi legalised" their demand for, as well as their domestic supply of, drugs?
How can we explain the silence of countries such as the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, among many others, which have de jure or de facto depenalised or decriminalised the personal consumption of some drugs?
Or the silence of countries that allow users to grow a number of marijuana plants in their homes and for their own consumption, or tolerate the operation of so called “cannabis social clubs”, or authorise the cultivation of marijuana to supply dispensaries where consumption on medical grounds is allowed?
I do not have any doubts that harm reduction programmes, decriminalisation or depenalisation of the demand for drugs are sensible and necessary policies. But if we were serious about tackling the so-called drug problem, we should be accompanying those policies regarding the demand with equally sensible policies towards the supply of drugs coming from Latin America—or from any other part of the world for that matter.
It is disgraceful, almost criminal, to see that while Latin Americais trying to promote the discussion of current and alternative drug policies, we behave in the most cowardly fashion: we remain in silence.
Our mutism is totally inexcusable, for in the final analysis the onus is on us, drug consuming countries in the developed world. We should be the ones promoting the Legalisation & Regulation of the supply. We should be the ones making all the noises calling for a change in the national and international legislation on drugs. We should be spearheading the movement seeking the end of Prohibition and the War on Drugs, and the regulation of the production and distribution of all drugs.
Gart Valenc
Twitter: @gartvalenc
.2 grams of coc ?
Maybe I`ll go inside and take a hit of the rock . Go outside , wait 10 minutes , go back in for another . ? The cain and the heroin should be legal . No drug war . People who use Cannabis , enjoy it . People who use heroin or crack , wish they could stop . There is a difference . Legal Cannabis would cut down on the use of other " drugs " . To bad the dea head doesn`t understand that .
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