When Denmark made it possible for municipalities to implement drug consumption rooms (DCRs) in 2012, Copenhagen was quick to establish two in the Vesterbro district. Interestingly, the legislation on DCRs states that the local police must define an area “in the immediate vicinity” of a DCR where drug possession is tolerated if someone “is over 18 years of age and as a result of a longer and persistent abuse of euphoric substances has a strong dependence on the substance in question”.
When the first DCR was established, the whole inner part of that district was defined as a “non-enforcement zone”, which impacted local policing practices. In this depenalised environment, they instead focused on supporting low-threshold services in the area, mediate between people who use drugs and the residents, attempting to make life safer and more secure for vulnerable people in the area. This has increasingly been known as “harm reduction policing”, where people using drugs are increasingly seen as right-bearing citizens rather than immediately as offenders.
We set out to understand how this law change impacted the area, interviewing people using drugs between 2017 and 2019 to understand how it altered their lives, what this new form of policing looked like and, ultimately, how criminalisation persisted for them. The complete analysis of our findings can be found here.
Reactions to depenalisation
In our interviews, several people who use drugs spoke of how the new DCR brought with it a new relationship with the police. As one man told us: “It is a bit funny, and it takes some getting used to, that you suddenly just could do it [carry and use drugs].”
Before, vulnerable people in the Vesterbro area were subjected to intense drug law enforcement interventions. However, during our study, those we spoke to reported that they were now mostly left alone:
“Sometimes, the police come by, but then we say that we clean up after ourselves, and they say ‘fine’ and move on. And we just explain to them why we are sitting there, that it is because we want the most peace and quiet,” a woman told us.
The police adapted to the law change, reforming how they approached people using drugs: they wanted to extend their services to vulnerable people using drugs, finally perceiving them as citizens with a right to community safety. This change in the relationship was surprising, given the traditional approach of police perceiving people who use drugs as a source of insecurity for the rest of the community.
“They have helped me with [sex work] clients and several things, so they are very nice to me,” one woman told us. “They are very nice to me, they drive me around to my things when I have bad legs.”
For some, the presence of the police was linked to an increased feeling of safety and security. Others said that the presence of the local police contributed to creating a safer environment:
“They [the police] are good to have around because it calms down many things when they are here. It would not be possible to live without them; it wouldn’t. It would be like the Wild West again. So, it is nice to have the police here, I think,” another woman told us.
And how they found the police in the neighbourhood to be nice:
“The police have been after me since I was a kid. But the police in this neighbourhood are actually totally polite. I would say that they treat everyone really nice,” one man told us.
“You have to respect people who want to use their time on running around and trying to establish order, even though it really doesn’t have anything to do with them”, he added.
The boundaries of the experiment
Despite these positive experiences, several interviewees still saw issues with police and the new drug laws in place, illustrating the dilemmas and contradictions that are at the heart of depenalisation. While some spoke of positive interactions with neighbourhood police officers, experiences with other non-local police forces were much more mixed.
Some interviewed people highlighted how they were still vulnerable to drug criminalisation: one woman had been arrested by a drug detective (from a specialised law enforcement team) for selling some of her substitution medication to be able to buy other drugs:
“I sometimes sell some of the methadone I get at the clinic, and while [drug detectives] are mostly after the organised drug dealers, we get arrested as well. Because it is illegal. So those officers I don’t like that much,” one woman told us.
Some people sell drugs to finance their own use, referred to academically as ‘user-dealers’. This phenomenon highlights the issues with only de-penalising the personal possession of small amounts of drugs, without accommodating for the reality of many vulnerable people who use drugs who may often sell drugs to survive or support themselves. This begs the question: if this new form of policing is really intended to protect the rights of vulnerable people using drugs, but continues to criminalise their means for survival and livelihood, then are police actually changing their practices?
Even with a system of depenalisation in place, some interviewees said they were still arrested for drug possession when national police forces wanted to build a criminal against a larger seller:
“The police are not supposed to take your drugs if you only have a small amount for your own personal consumption […] But you can’t be so sure about that, because if they are observing a drug dealer and they want to arrest that guy, then they will have to stop you and confiscate your drugs in order to use them as evidence,” one woman told us.
This highlights how the new system provides no guaranteed rights for those using drugs in Vesterbro, who are not protected from arrests in this system of depenalisation. People using drugs are dependent on benevolent police officers not seeing them as potential witnesses for a larger case. Their drug use is therefore not a protected right; it is a privilege that can be – and has been – taken away.
This harsh reality underpins the supposed benefits of the new form of harm reduction policing. Furthermore, it is important to note, that amidst these developments towards depenalisation in a local context, drug law enforcement in Denmark in general has increased since 2004, following legislative changes that introduced zero-tolerance for personal possession nationwide. Across Denmark, prohibition remains the status quo; while Vesterbro is an island of non-enforcement, it is still vulnerable to wider law enforcement objectives.
The ambiguous reality – and future – of harm reduction policing and depenalisation
Our interviews with Vesterbro’s drug-using residents highlighted the ambiguous legal reality of depenalisation: while it allowed for a DCR to exist and for people to be more open about their drug use, it still does not legally protect people from arrest or harassment. They are dependent on the goodwill of law enforcement officers, a delicate situation that can change depending on policing priorities.
Actual ‘de-jure’ decriminalisation could avoid this situation. This would enshrine the rights of people using drugs in law, meaning that they are no longer perceived as “pardoned criminals” within a defined area, but equal citizens to other non-drug using ones. It would protect not just those living in Vesterbro, but the whole of Denmark, from drug confiscation or police entrapment. Until these securities are put in place, people using drugs remain vulnerable to criminalisation.
In Denmark, recent legislative changes are perpetuating the broken logic of harm reduction policing. A new law, implemented in June 2024, confirmed that charges for personal possession must be waived across Denmark if there are specific “social conditions” (such as someone’s only source of income being social benefits), or if their possession is tied to a strong dependence to “hard drugs” (excluding cannabis). While this law expands some of Vesterbro’s approach across the country, it maintains the primacy of police holding the power to decide whether someone fulfils these requirements or not. It is still too soon to see whether this law will truly stop the continued criminalisation of vulnerable people.
Overall, our findings highlighted how the introduction of a DCR can be an opportunity to protect people who use drugs from harsh treatments and undue criminalisation. But it is also a reminder that, unless a policy explicitly protects those using drugs from criminal proceedings associated to their drug use, they are still at the mercy of law enforcement, just like anywhere else in the world. For decriminalisation, the devil is very much in the details of its implementation. That is why integrating the experiences and lived realities of those using drugs is absolutely essential to drug policymaking processes.
