According to experts, it has become much easier to get hold of drugs in Denmark – a contention backed up by the findings of a new documentary series debuting on TV2 tonight that introduces an environment very few people in Denmark are actually aware of.
It’s one in which boys aged just 16 and 17 are selling cocaine on the street.
Some still attend folkeskole.
A lot has changed in recent years
In ‘En gang narkostrømer’, of which the first of two episodes will broadcast tonight at 20:50 on TV2, former drug officer René Dahl Andersen, now a respected author and lecturer, embarks onto the streets of Vesterbro in Copenhagen.
Seeing the youngsters made a big impression on Andersen. Just five years ago, Andersen would never have dreamt of meeting dealers as young as the teens he met.
“I was on these streets for almost 14 years. I have never – like never – encountered a 16-year-old who is in the 9th grade,” he said.
Drug seizures shooting up
Last year, the Danish Customs Agency seized significantly larger quantities of illegal substances than in 2021. Cocaine seizures shot by from 7 to 112 kilos, for example.
Despite political austerity and efforts by the police, the number of young adults and kids who use illegal drugs has remained largely unchanged since the year 2000.
The preferred drugs have changed, though. Previously heroin was the most widespread hard drug, but cocaine quickly took over in the early 00s.
Pays well to deal
In the documentary in Vesterbro, it only takes 45 minutes of Andersen walking its streets before he runs into two very young boys.
It transpires that they had just handed over 50 grams of cocaine to some pushers at the drug intake room H17 and will need to collect the money later. They are used to doing the same procedure many times a week, they said.
“Why keep up with school when you can earn 10,000 kroner a week,” questions Andersen.
Drug crime is by far the biggest form of crime in Denmark. In Danish prisons, 20 percent of the inmates are those convicted of drug offences.
