Since the early 2000s, drug-related deaths have tripled in Finland. The 2020 report also indicated that 67 per cent of drug-induced deaths were accidental poisonings, usually poisonings from multiple substances, with the most prominent substance in most death cases being a synthetic pharmaceutical opioid.
According to a survey conducted by the Finnish Broadcasting Company in 2021, Finnish police chiefs considered drug-related criminality and its side effects as the most serious threats to citizens’ security in Finland.
As the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare describes, Finland’s drug policy is based on the traditional prohibitionist approach. Serious drug offenses such as drug manufacturing, trading and trafficking, as well as the use and possession of drugs, are illegal and punishable. Alongside this prohibitionist policy, Finland supports harm-reduction policies which emphasize national health perspectives by reducing drug-related harm with health counseling provided to drug users, including needle and syringe programs and opioid substitution treatment.
In the beginning of February, a citizen’s initiative was launched for the establishment of supervised drug consumption rooms to reduce the harm related to drug use. In these spaces, sometimes called supervised injecting facilities, people who inject drugs are provided with sterile injection equipment and can use illicit drugs under the supervision of trained staff that can also intervene in the cases of overdoses that occur on-site. The citizen’s initiative for supervised drug consumption facilities reached the required signatories of 50,000 in the end of July, and the Parliament of Finland has taken it up for consideration.
theowp.org/finland-discussing-drug-consumption-rooms-to-prevent-harm/
