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Copenhagen: A War on Socially Marginal People

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European Drug Policies and Enforcement

Abstract

The following account of recent developments in low-level drug policing in Denmark — ‘the war on drug users’ — refers to a major three- to four-year police operation aimed at tackling the drug problem with saturation policing, particularly in two areas of Copenhagen — Vesterbro and Christiania. While these actions were seen by the police as central elements of its drug strategy (‘Narko-strategi 90’), they gave rise to much public criticism, involved huge financial costs and — as several critics have claimed — considerably increased the misery of street addicts.

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© 1996 Nicholas Dorn, Jørgen Jepsen and Ernesto Savona

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Jepsen, J. (1996). Copenhagen: A War on Socially Marginal People. In: Dorn, N., Jepsen, J., Savona, E. (eds) European Drug Policies and Enforcement. Confederation of European Economic Associations Conference Volumes. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24619-9_2

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