News » Sweden Legalizes Cannabis – Or Not

December 20, 2011 by Aaron Turpen

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Monday saw a flurry of social network activity surrounding a short news piece posted on “JustPaste.it” with the headline Sweden legalizes and regulates cannabis. The story says:

The Swedish Parliament has approved a law which will regulate the growing, usage and trade of cannabis. This is according to the Health and Social Services of Sweden, Jonas Grönhög, who was quoted, “We don’t want to make the same mistakes which the USA has done, we do not want to be prohibitionists because the war on drugs has been lost long ago. It is better to prevent marginalization of young people than jail them for soft drugs usage which are comparatively harmless. If we allow the sale of alcohol, there is no reason to ban the soft drugs no longer.”

It’s signed “Source: 420 Dagbladet, Stockholm, December 19 2011″ (no link).

There are several problems with this. First, “420 Dagbladet” is an obvious pot reference, translating to “420 Daily News”. It’s unverifiable as the names “Daily News” or “Daily Newspaper” do not exist as a publication name in Sweden with the term “420″ in front of it. Neither does the name “Jonas Gronhog” appear anywhere in the Health and Social Services of Sweden. In fact, the HSSS doesn’t exist either, the pertinent governing body over healthcare being the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, whose title is the closest to that given in the article when compared to the list of government ministries.

Sweden, in fact, has fairly heavy cannabis laws with even the suspicion of smoking, possessing, or selling cannabis being enough reason for police to be able to require submission to search and even drug testing. This year alone, the Swedish government spent $7.5 million (USD) on campaigns against marijuana smoking in major cities around the country – that’s over and above the law enforcement and other funds spent in the Swedish anti-drug campaigns.

The Internet at large, though the story has been spread far and wide, has begun to debunk this obvious hoax. The above-mentioned source for the story has now been downplayed on Reddit to the point that it’s nearing 50:50 up and down votes.

Sorry, folks, but it just ain’t true. Sweden did not legalize marijuana.

Tags: cannabis, legalization, legalize, marijuana, sweden, swedish