(Harm Reduction Efforts and Safe Injection Education in Sweden, 2012) "Safe injecting practices aim at teaching injecting drug users to inject in a safe way (e.g. not sharing needles or syringes). Such practices are included in NSPs in Sweden. However, since the NSPs in Sweden are unevenly spread, a majority of injecting drug users in Sweden still lack the opportunity to reduce major health risks associated with using unsterile or contaminated injecting equipment.

(Low-Threshold Primary Healthcare Programs Aimed at Drug Users in Sweden, 2012) "Low-threshold health care centres (LTHC) offer health services (e.g. needle exchange, medical services) without attempting to control intake of drugs, and provide counselling only if requested. LTHCs may be contrasted with regular treatment programmes (“high-threshold" programmes), in which the user is required to accept a certain level of control.

(Homelessness and Substance Abuse in Sweden, 2012) "A national mapping of homelessness⁹ in Sweden, which was conducted in April 2011 shows an increase in the number of homeless people – from approximately 18,000 in 2005 to 34,000 in 2011(Socialstyrelsen, 2011a). The large increase in reported homeless people mainly concerns people who live in relatively long-term housing solutions, such as training flats and apartments with social contracts.

(Estimated Number of Injection Drug Users in Sweden, 2012) "From an infectious disease perspective, there is a significant difference between a PDU and an IDU with regard to risk-taking and disease outcome. In 2013, the National Board of Health and Welfare used a new method to estimate the number of IDUs in Sweden. The method uses patient registries and applies a condition based

(Negative Effects From "Zero Tolerance" in Swedish Methadone Programs) "Some Swedish maintenance treatment programmes have 'zero tolerance' against lateral use, which means that a patient can be discharged from treatment after a single positive urine test (Heilig & Gunne, 2008).

(Criminal Sanctions for Drug Offenses in Sweden, 2012) "The most common sanction issued to those convicted of drug offences is a fine, in the form of either a summary fine issued by the prosecutor or a court sentence. Those issued fines accounted for 58% of all those convicted of drug offences in 2012. In 2012, 29% of those convicted of drug offences took the form of waivers of prosecution, whereas 5% involved prison sentences.

(Correlations Between Alcohol Use, Tobacco Use, and Other Drug Use Among Swedish Youth) "Among students aged 15-16, approximately 40% of those who had used drugs also reported a large consumption of alcohol and this was a much higher proportion than among students with no reported drug use (8%).

Economics

(Evaluation of Sweden's 2006-2010 Drug Control Strategy) "SNIPH was given the task of evaluating the strategy for the period 2006-2010 and a final report was published in autumn 2010 (Statens folkhälsoinstitut, 2010b). In summary, a more negative development was observed for narcotics than for alcohol, with increasing harm in the form of ill-health, mortality and crime. While efforts to attain the goals in the area of alcohol have intensified, efforts in the area of narcotics have stagnated.

(Drug Seizures in Sweden, 2012) "Seizures of pharmaceuticals classified as narcotics (mainly benzodiazepines) show an increasing trend. This increase may be due to an increase of medicines sold illegally over the Internet. The large number of seizures is partially due to the fact that these drugs are often used in combination with other drugs.