A Strait or an Ocean? Exploring Risks and Resources among People who use Drugs in Denmark and Sweden

BACKGROUND: Denmark and Sweden have similar welfare systems, but different drug policies. Denmark has historically a more liberal and more harm reduction-oriented drug policy than Sweden. On this background, we present a study of risks and use of formal and informal resources among structurally vulnerable people who use drugs in Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmö in Sweden.

METHODS: The study reports from research projects in each city that investigated the everyday lives and risks- and enabling environments of structurally vulnerable people who use drugs. Both projects involved the same survey. Participants were recruited at treatment and low-threshold services in Copenhagen (n = 243) and Malmö (n = 231).

RESULTS: The participants in the two cities used many different resources provided by the welfare system, but participants from Copenhagen made more use of available harm reduction services. The participants from Malmö used drugs in more risky settings and relied more on other people who use drugs for resources and had more concerns regarding overdoses and other drug-related harms and about being arrested by the police.

CONCLUSIONS: In both cities, the Nordic welfare state plays a large role in providing resources, but drug policy can influence access to harm reduction resources and the experience of criminalization. These differences can play a role in shaping the local risk environments, although the patterns identified should be interpreted with caution given the exploratory nature of the study. More comparative research is needed to explore how drug policy shape risk environments.