<p>The drug treatment staff attitude towards needle exchange is what investigates in this study. The aim of this study is to see what’s affecting the standpoints in the needle exchange issue and also to investigate if the needle exchange is compatible with Swedish drug policy. The study has a qualitative approach and it’s based on eight semi-structured interviews with drug treatment staff. To analyze the empirical material we’ve used Berger and Luckmanns social construction theory, the theoretical concept profession socialization and the four ethical principles: autonomy principle, goodness maximization principle, harm minimization principle and the principle of justice.</p><p>The result of this study shows that drug treatment staffs are negative to needle exchange efficacy. They don’t believe that needle exchange is compatible with Swedish drug policy which strives for a drug free society. The drug treatment staffs are worried about that harm reduction interventions, such as needle exchange, will lead to a liberalized drug policy and that drug use will be legitimized. They fear that the drug policy will be weakened with harm reduction. The results illustrate that there are numerous factors that influence staff attitudes towards needle exchange, these are profession socialization, workplace, organization, context, the current drug policy as well as knowledgeable of the needle exchange.</p><p>Keywords: Needle exchange, Injection drug users, Drug treatment staff, Harm reduction and Swedish drug policy.</p>

Den här studien undersöker argument som tas upp i debatten om narkotikabruket. Studiens fokus ligger på argumenten som upprätthåller kriminaliseringen av narkotikabruk. Det finns inga substantiella evidens för att den här kriminaliseringen har haft den effekt som var tänkt, men regeringen har uttryckt att de inte vill utreda frågan. Enligt sociologerna Èmile Durkheim och Randall Collins finns det en social nödvändighet av brott; brottsligheten är en naturlig funktion av ett regelstyrt samhälle. Brottslighet aktualiseras genom kriminaliseringar och fungerar som moralbildande genom att det stärker de normativa övertygelserna hos de individer i samhället som inte begår brott. På så sätt handlar lagar, brott och straff mer om att stärka sammanhållningen i samhället än om att straffa brottslingar. Den här studien använder en kritisk diskursanalytisk metod - Norman Faircloughs argumentationsanalys och dialektala utvärdering - för att analysera argument från tre nutida samhällsdebatter, hämtade från SVT och Youtube, och förklara deras moraliska funktioner. Resultatet visar att argumenten som legitimerar kriminaliseringen av narkotikabruk inte är logiska. Dessa argument avfärdar det som motstrider dem samtidigt som de rättfärdigar sig själva på godtyckliga grunder. Argumenten verkar heller inte anta ett opersonligt förhållningssätt till eventuella problematiseringar med kriminaliseringen och dess effekter, utan verkar i första hand syfta till att upprätthålla de moraliska och politiska övertygelserna bakom kriminaliseringen. / This study explores the arguments stated about drug use in public debates, in particular arguments that perpetuate the criminalization of drug use. Even though there aren't any substantial evidence that the criminalization of drug use has had the effect it was intended to have, the Swedish government has stated that they don't intend to evaluate this matter. According to sociologists Èmile Durkheim och Randall Collins there's a social necessity of crime; delinquency is a natural phenomenon in a policy regulated society. Crime reinforces the moral standards within noncriminal individuals by operating as a moral producing idea. Laws, crime and punishment aren't as much about punishing the perpetrator per se, but more about emphasizing and reinforcing social sentiments and solidarity. By using critical discourse analysis - Norman Fairclough's argumentation analysis och dialectical evaluation - this study analyzes arguments from three contemporary public debates, from SVT and Youtube, and tries to explain their moral functions. The result shows that the arguments upholding the criminalization of drug use aren't logical. These arguments reject counterclaims whilst justifying themselves on arbitrary grounds. Moreover, the arguments aren't seemingly based on objectivity regarding the problematizations surrounding the criminalization of drug use and its effects, but seem to primarily enforce the moral and political ideology behind the criminalization itself.

Sweden’s drug policy still invokes the ideas of zero-tolerance and prohibition despite the high reported number of drug-related deaths and arrest rates for using drugs in Sweden in the latest years. To reach knowledge about why prohibition of illegal drugs has remained such a strong staple of Swedish politics for the latest 60 years, this study asks questions about which ideas and arguments constituting the Swedish drug policy, examines the logical coherence of these, and proposes an alternative policy route which aims to mitigate the shortcomings of the current policy. The drug policy field is extensive and studies from different nations show that drug policies that move away from prohibitionist ideas have succeeded in both reducing drug-related mortality rates and reducing the stigma that is attached to either using or abusing psychoactive drugs. Because of an identified unclarity of why the prohibitionary ideas in Sweden have remained despite recent developments, this study aims to fill a gap in existing research by normatively analyzing the ideas in the policy. Since these ideas have great importance in restrictions of individual liberty and public health considerations, knowledge about them is essential to create because liberty and public health are fundamental aspects in any democratic society. The research endeavor performs an internal validity check as the methodological approach to check the internal logic and arguments of the policy and uses a theory of liberty to shed light on the trade-offs between liberty and public health. What is discovered is that the Swedish drug policy builds on inconsistent arguments and incoherent logic and has a moralizing intent that allows for restrictions on individual liberty to reach a utopian vision of a drug-free society. Also, this study shows that it is possible to create a policy that can mitigate the harms caused by the current by adhering to the principle that individual liberty should stretch as far as possible when no harm is caused to another. The implications of this are that it will be harder to justify the zero-tolerance approach in the future and that future policy must look to other policy approaches rather than build policy on assumptions based on outdated moralism.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur socialsekreterare som arbetar inom missbruk och beroende resonerar kring innehållet i debatten gällande avkriminalisering av narkotika för eget bruk. Val av datainsamling var semistrukturerade intervjuer med sju verksamma socialsekreterare inom missbruk- och beroende området. Empirin har bearbetats genom tematisk analys och analyserats utifrån stigmatiseringsteorin och totalkonsumtionsteorin. Studien visar att det inte finns någon enhetlighet i socialsekreterarnas åsikter och resonemang gällande området och att det likt debatten föreligger en polarisering även här. Resonemangen som fördes av socialsekreterarna i studien gick att koppla till tre olika åsiktsläger. Den prohibitionistiska linjen som förespråkar en fortsatt kriminalisering av narkotika för eget bruk, det restriktiva folkhälsoperspektivet som efterlyste ett mer allomfattande perspektiv kring frågan och den pragmatiska harm reduction linjen som menar på att en avkriminalisering av eget bruk hade varit ett steg i rätt riktning. Studien visar att den huvudsakliga fördelen som socialsekreterarna upplevde med en avkriminalisering av eget bruk hade varit att man minskar stigmatiseringen kring människor som lever med missbruksproblem. Den huvudsakliga nackdelen som identifierades var att tillvägagångssättet hade kunnat leda till en ökad acceptans för narkotika i samhället, vilket hade lett till att fler människor använder narkotika och att man hade fått fler narkotikarelaterade problem. Studien visade även att socialsekreterarnas åsikter kring området påverkats av det praktiska mötet med målgruppen och att detta bidragit till antingen en mer restriktiv eller mer liberal hållning i frågan. / The purpose of this study was to investigate how social workers in the field of substance abuse and addiction reason about the content of the debate regarding the decriminalization of drugs for personal use. The choice of data collection was semi-structured interviews with seven active social workers in the field of substance abuse and addiction. The empiric has been processed through thematic analysis and analyzed on the basis of the stigma theory and the total consumption theory. The study shows that there is no uniformity in the social workers' opinions and reasoning regarding the area and that, like the debate, there is a polarization here as well. The reasoning given by the social workers in the study could be linked to three different opinion camps. The prohibitionist line advocating the continued criminalization of drugs for personal use, the restrictive public health perspective calling for a more comprehensive perspective on the issue, and the pragmatic harm reduction line arguing that decriminalization of drugs for personal use would have been a step in the right direction. The study shows that the main advantage that the social workers experienced with decriminalization of drugs for personal use had been to reduce the stigma surrounding people living with substance abuse problems. The main disadvantage identified was that the approach could have led to increased acceptance of drugs in society, which would have led to more people using drugs and to more drug-related problems. The study also showed that the social workers' views on the area were influenced by the practical meeting with the target group and that this contributed to either a more restrictive or more liberal attitude on the issue.