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COLD FACTS
A cannabis wave is sweeping over our young people.
One second-year high school student out of five has tried it
and more of them feel positive toward it now.
The drug is flooding across our borders.
We can show how young kids will do anything for a smoke
and customs agents chase teenagers among normal train travellers.
THE CANNABIS GENERATION
Should cannabis be equated with tobacco and alcohol?
Several American states are discussing
legalising cannabis for adult use.
No one knows anybody who ever died from a marijuana overdose.
But is cannabis harmless?
We've followed customs and the police as they battle to stop its spread
and studied the most recent research.
A picture emerges of a drug that's getting more dangerous
and available just a few mouse clicks away.
From here in Malmö, there are 75 trains to Denmark every day.
Some Swedish travellers just go there for the day to buy hashish
or some other cannabis product.
Plain clothes customs agents board the train to Copenhagen.
On the return trip, after crossing the border, they change their guise.
What's known as ant traffic is an endless stream of individuals
smuggling cannabis for their own use or to sell to others.
A lot of the smugglers are young kids.
Lars Bäckström Border Protection Chief
But serious criminal organisations as well
use couriers to smuggle larger amounts.
So large and serious crimes get exposed as well.
Customs agents use a drug-sniffing dog to pick up the scent.
Smugglers travelling in groups warn one another.
Wherever you go there's always a pusher
and you can always get your hands on it.
We meet some second-year high school students in Malmö.
It isn't hard in Malmö, since it's close to Denmark
where it's legal in some places. So it's very easy.
Do you have friends who've smoked so much they can't cope with school?
There are some people who were in my class before
who use cannabis now. I know that they aren't doing very well.
I didn't feel like I could just smoke some times
and then in between do what I needed to do. I had to choose.
For three years, 27-year-old Nathalie has undergone therapy
for severe problems due to cannabis abuse.
She was only 13 when she started, an age that is not uncommon.
I was missing something.
I didn't think that I was as good as those around me.
So I sought out people who weren't as demanding.
You start smoking cigarettes; then, you start drinking.
Then you come in contact with drugs.
After trying it, you think to yourself: "That was pretty good."
It makes you feel good
without having to clean your flat to feel that you've been good.
You get that feeling from smoking.
You get so used to taking this route
that it makes the usual path a thousand times harder than necessary.
Christiania in Copenhagen is an open market for cannabis.
There are signs saying "No photos" on Pusher Street.
You risk getting your open camera smashed.
Using two hidden cameras, we'll try to film drugs being purchased.
Despite being illegal, drugs are sold openly.
We pass stands selling joints, hash cakes and dried cannabis.
Customers sit outside the cafe smoking hash and drinking coffee.
We see several Swedish youths
including four high school girls who enter shabby Pusher Street.
They discuss which stand to try.
We watch the girls make a purchase and then leave Christiania.
Like all citizens, we are worried about how its spreading
and becoming accepted and dominated by young kids.
Do people your age talk about cannabis a lot?
Oh yeah, a lot; a lot more in recent years.
So it's becoming more and more common.
It's really bad for you
and it destroys your life at an early age.
And has a big effect on your life later on.
Cannabis is becoming increasingly common.
We asked how many seizures the national forensic science lab
analyses for the police.
There's been an increase in all kinds of cannabis.
The seized goods are divided into dried cannabis and hashish
the dried cake commonly called hash.
In 2003, the lab analysed 5,512 seizures of hashish.
In 2013, the figures is 8,479.
In 2003, 1,951 cannabis seizures were analysed.
Ten years later, the figure is 13,310.
So, in ten years there was a 53% increase for hashish
and 582% for cannabis.
We're going to follow the police
as they try to stop young kids from abusing drugs.
We'll give'em a couple more minutes.
We're following the police one night.
This plain clothes anti-drug unit is beginning its surveillance.
We'll give 'em a couple more minutes.
There isn't one quiet moment all night.
They arrest an 18-year-old with a knife and hashish.
Another 18-year-old is arrested in possession of cannabis.
Two 21-year-olds are found in a stairwell
in a serious drug-induced state after getting off the train from Denmark.
The woman has a hash cake in her bra and will need a thorough body search.
Two 14-year-olds have been found on a park bench
smoking so-called spice
a synthetic drug that contains various chemical substances.
The unit needs backup when an older, violent teenager shows up.
We drive to the site.
The 14-year-olds are taken to ER after speaking with a lawyer.
The drugs they've seized tonight will be sent to the forensic science lab.
We searched a boy and girl, she had this in her bra.
Andreas Nordström Juvenile Anti-Drug Unit
This is a half cake of pressed cannabis hashish.
A wave of liberalism is sweeping across Sweden and the whole world.
Kids think it's cool to smoke, and no worse than drinking a beer.
We see the age edging downward.
We see from the number of seizures and urine analyses
that the use of cannabis is increasing.
It's no coincidence that four teenagers and two 21-year-olds
are found in a serious drug-induced state.
The Board of Forensic Medicine has seen a large increase
in the number of blood and urine tests containing cannabis.
In 10 years, from 2003 to 2013
the number of positive cannabis results has almost tripled.
The samples are taken when the police suspect a drug violation.
There are more arrests now
and cannabis is much more potent than it was 10 years ago.
The forensic science lab has seen a big increase in THC in cannabis.
THC provides the "high" sensation, alters the sense of reality
and affects many functions in the brain.
In 10 years the average amount of THC
has increased from 5.32% in cannabis to 7.76%.
And from 7.96% to 15.66% in hashish.
THC has increased as growers have learned more about plant breeding.
One aim is to make the drug more addictive.
According to Fred Nyberg, who studies biological drug dependence
it's been proven that cannabis smoking lowers a teenager's IQ.
We meet Fred Nyberg at a conference on cannabis.
It affects the centre of the brain
associated with cognition, ie, with memory and learning.
Our coordination and motor activity are also impaired by it
and it also affects one's mood; one can easily become depressed.
It can even trigger psychosis.
We've had access to one of the most thorough studies ever made
which clearly shows that the THC substance in cannabis
has an IQ-lowering effect.
The study followed over 1,000 people, and was carried out in New Zealand
over a period of 35 years.
Researchers started following the participants at age 3-4.
Their IQ was measured regularly from 13 years of age.
The study was published in 2012
in the journal PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It shows a link between early-age cannabis smoking and a lower IQ.
It makes sense, since we know that the brain
is most vulnerable from the early teenage years through the age of 25.
Nathalie is doing well now. She has a job, her own home and a boyfriend.
Drugs are a finished chapter.
When I gave up drugs, I had to start over from when I'd begun smoking.
I had to develop emotionally from being a 14-year-old
and develop into a woman.
I feel like I'm a bit behind, but I probably would be anyway.
It's just how I am. I never meet anyone who's behind me, so to speak.
You have to take care of the patient.
You are the tool for treatment, not the method.
Nathalie has been treated by psychologist Thomas Lundqvist
who has worked with drug abuse treatment for 40 years.
He has seen how adolescents' attitude toward cannabis has changed.
Before, one out of five thought that smoking cannabis was good.
Now almost half of those tested think it's good
in regions such as Gothenburg, Malmö and Lund.
- And you don't know why? - No, we don't know why.
On the Web there are numerous ads for cannabis, targeted at the young.
There's debate about its legalisation within established political parties
and on websites such as the one for the Cannabis Party.
The use of marijuana can lead, in those that are vulnerable
to anxiety and changes in mood.
Nora Volkow heads the American drug research agency, NIDA.
In several states cannabis is a legal painkiller.
In two states it's legal for adult use.
Many more people are dying and having adverse effects
from alcohol and tobacco because they're legal.
I say: "Can we afford a third legal drug?"
It'll be extraordinarily costly for the health care system
and for human lives and suffering.
So that is my argument.
The sniffing dogs detect drugs on every crossing we make from Denmark.
It's always cannabis.
Our results were fairly typical.
We had three seizures of cannabis this evening.
One seizure comprised 106 grams of cannabis with no owner.
A train environment invites that to happen.
A bit later, we got a bigger seizure.
1.2 kilos approximately of cannabis hashish
found on a 25-year-old man. A bit later on a 20-year-old man
we found some cannabis and syringes and needles.
We suspect him of carrying other drugs inside his body.
We're holding him till we find out what he's carrying inside his body.
For this report we've talked to drug users, scientists, the police and customs.
Whose problem it is when young people risk retarded development?
Are we heading toward a whole generation of cannabis users?
Beatrice Ask Minister of Justice
I hope not, but there's reason to be worried about what we're seeing.
We're losing that generation.
This is a serious matter.
It's important for everyone to be informed.
Many people know drugs are dangerous. You can overdose.
You can die. It's important for young people to know this.
Our Supreme Court has lowered the sentences for drug violations.
Beatrice Ask isn't happy with this change
and has appointed a board to propose a change to our drug laws.
As a result of the change in praxis by the Supreme Court
sentences for drug violations have been lowered.
We've appointed a board to make sure our drug policy remains restrictive.
The board will present its proposals in June, I believe.
It's one answer to our worries.
We want concrete proposals for how we can ensure the drug policy
on which we had agreed. But a lot more is needed:
Making the police more effective and getting information to the young.
For our police, the at times hopeless search for drugs continues.
You feel like you're running with a coffee cup under the Niagara falls.
- Is it worth it? - Definitely.
If we can turn these young kids and get them on the right track
it's all the reward we need. That's most important to us.
What you think about the cannabis wave among the young?
Discuss this on our Facebook page
with our reporter Ritva Rönnberg and researcher Fred Nyberg.
Next week we'll look into the steep decline of maths in our schools.
Swedish students are lagging farther and farther behind in maths.
Divide seven plus seven plus five...
I can see no research evidence to back up
that there is a better method than the classical one.
It's dangerous to put into practice an idea with no scientific basis.
Maybe, rather than a lack of jobs in Sweden, there's a lack of knowledge.
Subtitles by Susanna Stevens Svensk Medietext