Ten meters from where we are talking to Svenneby, there are three or four young men selling fabric. Quite openly.
Customers come and go.
We are standing under the bridge in Greenland.
Svenneby lives a little further north-east – on Tøyen – and walks under the bridge almost every day to work.
The sellers stare at us a bit, but see that we are not the police – and continue the sale.
Svenneby says they don’t take him to be a hashish user, because of his slightly more Oslo Vest clothing than is usual on the pavement in Greenland.
– It’s cocaine they offer when I pass by every day, not hashish, he says.
– Klin impossible
VG has previously written about a report from the neighborhood police in Greenland, which shows that criminals operate freely in the area. Shop owners and employees are exposed to violence and threats, according to this report, which caused several to sound the alarm.
The Young Conservative leader has started a crusade against today’s Norwegian conservative measures to fight the gangs.
– It is almost impossible to break the backs of the criminal gangs without attacking their markets. We can do that by legalizing hashish and cannabis. In Sweden, that is what this is all about. That the gangs have taken over the drug markets and are making a lot of money.
“To curse in the church” can get a rewritten version: “To curse under the bridge”:
– We have to realize that more police officers are not the solution to breaking gang crime, says Svenneby without blinking an eye.
He knows that in the heated debate in recent weeks, where there have been episodes of violence every other day in the capital, the demand for more police has not only come from the right, but also from the left.
Svenneby says he thinks people will eventually see that it is better that, for example, hashish is sold at Vinmonopolet or possibly pharmacies.
– The more dangerous a drug is, the more difficult it should be to get hold of. Today you buy hashish and heroin on the same street corner. Then something is very wrong.
He adds:
– If it were true that more police is the way to go, all countries would do it. But it hasn’t worked anywhere. We must remove the market instead.
– Meaningless
Ap deputy leader Tonje Brenna recently said that you do not solve the problems with the gangs if you do what is criminally legal.
Svenneby completely butchers that statement.
– It is a meaningless statement without content.
– Does she think legalization is the wrong means of arresting the gangs?
– Show me which country has managed it. Drug sales are the basis of recruitment for the gangs and it is their income. And there is good income for the young people who are put to sell hashish and cocaine. If the hashish turnover had been transferred, for example, to the pole or the pharmacy, then the income streams for the gangs would have shrunk.
– And he says:
– We had a turnover where we knew the substances were clean.
He says we are heading towards Swedish conditions.
– There the gangs infiltrate the police academy, probably also in Norway, they infiltrate the municipal parties in Sweden and Spotify. One can close one’s eyes, but that is ignorance.
Svenneby says that by virtue of his position as a member of the program committee in the parent party Høyre, he will ensure that the legalization of cannabis and hashish must be debated at the national meeting of the Høyre next spring.
– It is the first time that we have a process in the program committee in the Conservative Party, where the legalization of hashish and cannabis is seriously put on the agenda before a national meeting.
Think the Russian era would have become more peaceful with hashish
Svenneby says he is certain that the legalization train is only at the first station in Norway and that it will find a legalized exit.
– It will probably not get a majority at the national meeting in the spring, but it will go quickly. At first it was Amsterdam and a few other cities that started. Now it is legalized in many states in the USA, Canada, Germany and Spain.
He says this will force its way in Norway as well.
– It’s just a matter of when, and I think it will happen sooner than people think.
– Can you point to countries where legalization has not led to increased consumption of the drugs that have been legalized?
– We see that usage has changed and increased for some, but among young people under 18 it has decreased somewhat.
He swears more under the bridge:
– Use of cannabis in itself is not a goal. The best goal is to look at the overall picture of addiction. To be completely honest, the Russian era would probably have been better, more peaceful and with less risk of abuse, if hashish was smoked instead of the extensive alcohol consumption that is today.
– Educative
– You risk opening the door to the use of more dangerous drugs, if you legalize the least dangerous drugs?
– I think the right way is to inform people about what the risk entails. What I have experienced as a student and young person was that we were told that there was a ban and we could end up in prison. In a more educational situation, we could have achieved more with knowledge.
– On the western edge, cocaine is used more; There is no doubt that it is a more dangerous substance than hashish?
– Unge Høyre is for the regulation of lighter drugs.
– Also cocaine?
– We have not defined that, but I don’t think that is relevant. For me, regulation is more important than legalization: taking control of the production lines, the market and what is actually in the drugs is most important.
He adds:
– I don’t see that young people will leave their homes to smoke weed because it became legal.
– Haven’t some of the Swedish gangs moved more from drugs to technological fraud, because they earn much more from it?
– Yes, but in Norway we are not there. And the special thing is the recruitment route, where young people are recruited into the gangs by selling hashish and cocaine. For a 14-year-old, it is quite financially lucrative. If the sales route is removed, an important route for young people into the criminal gangs is also removed.
– This is the Al Capone of our time, he says.
– I think you must tell many young people who he was?
– He got rich on the illegal sale of alcohol because it was forbidden to sell it during prohibition in the USA between 1920 and 1933. That is exactly what is now happening in Norway. The gangsters win.
