CHAPTER 5 DRUG PROBLEMS

Several scholars have concluded that national legislation on narcotics in European countries has been established due to ratification of treaties and not because of domestic drug problems (de Kort 1995; Korf 1995; Lindgren 1993; Olsson 1994; Scheerer 1982; van der Stel 2000). This applies to the ratification of the Single Convention from 1961 as well. However, when negotiations that eventually resulted in the Single Convention were closed the forerunners of the modern drug problem in the Netherlands and Sweden had shown up. Therefore, formal social control of drugs as executed in the period prior to the modern drug problem is in focus for the first section of this chapter. In the second
section, the Zeitgeist (the 1960s) in which the modern drug problem emerged will be depicted.