Det narkotikafria samhället, ideologi och kunskap - Konstruktionen av narkotika och dess brukare som sociala problem

Sammanfattning: The aim of this paper has been to study how swedish governmental policy constitutes drugs and drug users as social problems and how these constructions relate to ideology and knowledge. Critical discourse analysis of several governmental policy documents show that the construction of ”the drug problem” is made up of discourse orders that advocate both epidemiological control strategies and symptom theoretical approaches to drug use and dependency focusing on treatment. Embedded within these orders of discourse the study finds a nationalistic dimension of the ”drug-free society”, the drug problem as ever-increasing and the drug user as an divergent individual. In conclusion this paper highlights the considerable need for kowledge in this field and suggests that further studies into the complexities of problematic drug use, dependency and social policy is needed to balance out the struggle between ideological values and scientific knowledge.