Policy Displacement and Disparate Sanctioning from Policing Cannabis in Denmark

Abstract

In 2004 Danish cannabis policy moved away from a tradition of harm reduction and towards a focus on deterring buyers and sellers in street-level retail markets. This article examines two research questions regarding the unintended consequences from policing the new policy. The data consist of police drug seizures by district, and criminal statistics on the national origin of people who have been sanctioned with a fine for a drug law misdemeanour.

The first unintended consequence is analysed as a policy displacement following the increased focus on the lower levels of distribution. This is tested in a fixed effects regression model using the association between number of drug seizures and seized amount. For cannabis, there is a significant negative relationship between within-police district number of seizures and within-police district amounts (beta = − .34, p = .001). For all other drugs, there is no significant association.

Secondly, from 2000 to 2008 police have dispensed almost 30,000 fines for drug law misdemeanours in Copenhagen alone, mostly for cannabis possession offences. Persons of non-Western origin are disproportionately represented compared to their share of population. A research question is posed that asks if the proactive policing of consensual illicit behaviour is associated with an increased ethnic disparity when number of sanctions increase. The correlation was found to be significant at .90 (n = 6, p < 0.01).

This study highlights two areas of unintended consequences that have been associated with the increased police focus on cannabis possession offences in Denmark. Firstly the increase in number of cannabis seizures has been followed by a decreased amount of cannabis seized. Secondly as the number of fines for misdemeanour drug offences increased, the proportion of persons of non-Western origin among the sanctioned also increased.

Keywords:

• Cannabis policy
• Copenhagen
• Ethnic disparity
• Policing
• Policy displacement

Acknowledgements

Associate Professor Morten Hesse, PhD, and Associate Professor Kim Bloomfield, PhD, from the Center of Alcohol and Drug Research have provided invaluable comments and statistical assistance.