Paper Example on the War on Drugs: Norway's Policies and Western Nations' Battle

Introduction

The war on drugs is fought all over the world. Different centuries are grabbling with the drug menace, which has gone to the extent of crippling some nations. While different policies have been implemented by various nations to control drug use, the issue still remains unresolved. One of the nations that have developed various policies relating to drug use in Norway. After many years of war on drugs, a majority of the western nations still continue to pose a strong war on drugs. The hard stance of police in fighting drugs has not played to stop the trade. While arrests are usually made and some culprits taken to prison, the issue of drug abuse continues to affect different nations.

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Different countries continue to fight different drugs. For instance, cannabis is more common in prohibition is such countries such as France than in America. Some states in the US have legalized the sale of marijuana while in the Netherlands, marijuana has been sold legally for decades. As a result of this variation between countries, different countries have found it better to evaluate their policies on drugs. One of what can be considered a radical decision and which has not been followed by western nations is the decriminalization of drugs that was done by Portugal in 2001 ("Drug," 2019). The law allowed people to move around with small quanta of drugs for personal use. Several nations have changed their stance on how they treat drug users. For example, users of cannabis are usually treated more humanly than they used to be treated before. Despite this, drugs remain strictly forbidden in these countries.

Norway has implemented a policy that decriminalizes drug use, and that seeks to treat the problem of drug use more of a health issue than a criminal issue. In this regard, drug issues should be handled by health professionals as opposed to the police. This policy has received support and opposition in equal measure. Although this policy does not have any legislative effect, it paves a way that might see Norway move to decriminalize drug use legally. While people continue to express their views about such a statement, it prepares people for the possibility of having the society treating people who possess or have been affected by drugs more gently ("Drug," 2019). It seeks to make the drug issue more of a health issue than a criminal issue. As such, all issues relating to drugs will be handled by the health sector and not the justice sector.

This thesis seeks to delve into this issue and assess whether Norway could be on its way to decriminalizing drugs. Additionally, this study will provide a legal background for the ongoing Norwegian debate on decriminalization. Since this is a sensitive topic, this study will also seek to address the central moral and sociological-empirical arguments basing on the data of various nations that have drug regulation regimes. Additionally, it will also seek to address the question of possible legislative outcomes of the upcoming reform.

Current Legal Regime in Norway

Based on the current law in Norway, it is considered a criminal offense to use or be in the possession of any of the substances listed in the "narcotics list." From a technical perspective, drugs are regulated in the Medicines Act of 1994, which has a section on narcotics. Section 24 of the ACT states that it is illegal to use or possess narcotics unless the person has been granted legal access (Marthinussen, 2018). Technically, legal access refers to prescription from a doctor giving the person permission to possess and use the drugs for medical purposes. It is also to be noted that it is considered a crime if one obtained legal access by providing false information. The penalty for this includes fines and imprisonment that may go up to three months.

It is also not allowed for one to possess small amounts of drugs for personal use. Such an instance is classified as storing narcotics, and it is sanctioned under the provision in the Penal Code of 2005 section 231. Based on official statistics, in 2015 alone, Norway had 293,000 criminal reactions (Marthinussen, 2018). Most of these comprised of traffic violations which accounted for 220,000 of these reactions. Some of the traffic violations and smuggling violations are punished forthwith through the imposition of fines under what is referred to as "on-the-spot optional fines." If these minor offenses are ignored, then Norway had 79,500 reactions in 2015 ("Drug," 2019). About 20,000 of these crimes were serious traffic violations. Six thousand were violent crimes and a total of 22,000 were drug crimes.

The total given for drug crimes includes crimes associated with driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The total number for such crimes was 4,600. If one violates the provisions of narcotics, he or she is deemed to have committed a criminal offense and this leads to a criminal conviction. If the traffic violations as a result of the influence of drugs are disregarded, then drug crimes account for almost 30% of criminal sanctions (Marthinussen, 2018).

If these statistics are broken down further, then one would find out that about 8,000 reactions are violations of the provisions in the Medicines Act section 24. Close to 4000 violations of the Penal Code Section 231 are sanctioned with relevant fines, and this means that they are treated as minor violations (Roudik, 2016). An example of this is storing some small amounts of drugs for personal use. What this means is that there exist numerous mundane end-users who are targeted by police in Norway. Many people have been sentenced for violating the provisions on the use and petty possession in the Medicines Act. However, some of this information is not readily available to the public.

In 2013-2014, several Norwegian police districts witnessed a substantial rise in their clear-up rates by way of a large increase in petty drug cases some of them which lead to reactions from the public prosecutor ("Drug," 2019). It is to be noted that the Penal Code states that for every fine that is awarded, there should be an alternative prison sentence which the person should serve if he or she does not have the ability to raise the fine. What this means is that a significant number of drug addicts result in serving prison sentences even without having to appear before a judge.

In the Norwegian prisons, 60% of the inmates have been reported as having a drug problem. Based on the recordings of a study conducted in 2016, about half of the inmates in Norwegian prisons confirmed to have used an illegal drug daily in the last six months before they served their sentences (Roudik, 2016). An estimated number of a third of inmates in Norwegian prisons were imprisoned for drug-related crimes.

Background for the drive for change

The Parliament and Government of Norway have put forward what can be considered as the first European decriminalization changes and reform since the Portuguese. This reform is pegged on a number of issues. One of the most probable drives towards the reform is that Norway has ranked among the top countries in the overdose deaths per capita. Its average supersedes the EU average by 400% ("UN AIDS," n.d.). Some of the other countries in this category are Sweden and Estonia. Norway is a nation that has ranked very well in other sectors such as welfare and health, and living standards and such abysmal record on deaths arising from drug use are bound to raise public debate.

Even though the number of deaths caused by overrode use of drugs has been a top subject in the social arena, there have been other arguments that have surfaced boldly. During the preparation of the new Norwegian Penal Code of 2005, Norway looked at the harm principle and stated that actions relating to the harm principle could be criminalized ("Global Commission on Drug Policy," 2016). This move received massive support throughout the legislative process.

The major starting point for the Commission in connection with John Stuart Mill's harm principle was taken when the commission stated that criminal punishment should be instituted based on the actions that harm or may harm others. Based on the current debate, a certain modification on the harm principle was used where it stated that criminal punishment should be invoked where there are "weighty arguments" for doing so. In this case, such weighty arguments are present if the action at hand has potential harming effects. This commission also did not consider the damage to society's morals as relevant harm.

Many of the people in the Commission wanted to decriminalize drug use as a direct consequence of their stance on the harm principle. The argument was that criminal sanctions against drug users involved visible paternalistic sides in that when one person uses drugs even to a very limited degree; it could harm other parties in several ways. The major reason for criminalizing drug use as a means of protecting the health of the user himself was not considered a proper reason for criminalization.

Despite these arguments and propositions, The Norwegian Ministry of Justice was not convinced. When it presented the final proposal to the parliament, The Ministry of Justice arrived at the same conclusion just like the minority in the commission had observed on the new Penal Code. The stance thus was that the use of drugs in an indirect way may cause damages to others. Besides, it was observed that there exist various effects for next of kin and that decriminalizing of the drugs may appear like a way of legitimating drug use and also lead to more use and abuse. Specifically, it was observed that the chilling effect of criminal sanctions could have numerous effects on young people.

Considering the growing empirical sociological data, the conclusions made continue to elicit a lot of criticism. Despite the fact that a number of countries have made a bold step and legalized cannabis trade, it is only Portugal that has decriminalized the use and possession of minor quantities of drugs. As a result, the data on decriminalization alone is not boldly available. Due to the Portuguese drug reform, there has been a sharp drop in overdose deaths as well as a great drop in HIV-infections which are attributable to drug use amongst the youths and young adults. This is below the European averages (Blickman & Jelsma, 2009). The number of drug-induced deaths in Portugal has also greatly decreased as a result of the reform. Despite the fact that the reform involved more than only decriminalizing of drug use and possession, the data for the other countries show that drug trends in the surrounding countries contribute to the impact of drug use in Portugal. This shows that neighboring countries can determine the impact of drug policies on other countries.

Additionally, the theory posits that the prohibition of drugs prevents young people from using illicit drugs lacks support if the recent trends of legalization in the US are anything to go by. In states such as Colorado and Washington after legalization in 2014, the use of cannabis by adolescents has been relatively stable (Laqueur, 2014). A study conducted between 1991 to 2014 showed that after the US legalized medical marijuana in 29 states, the move did not increase teen use of the drug. To look at more countries, a case of the Netherlands can be taken. The Netherlands is famous for its coffee shops but it is estimated that 16% of the people aged 15-35 used cannabis in 2016 (Laqueur, 2016). This shows the trends that young people have relating to drug use. It is also possible to look at some of the surrounding countries for comparison purposes. In many of the neighboring countries, cannabis remains prohibited and this also affects the response of Norway to drug use and the institution of reform...