Availability and Prices of Drugs in Sweden

"The availability of cannabis resin is judged to have increased over the past 20 years. Both economic availability and physical supply have increased. This assessment is based on the fact that seizures and court cases involving cannabis have increased sharply, at the same time as prices have fallen. However, data for 2010 indicates that this trend may have been broken in that the prices for cannabis resin rose and seizures decreased somewhat.
"This does not mean that availability of cannabis has decreased in general since demand for marijuana has increased. Seizures of marijuana have also increased and virtually all regions in Sweden currently report marijuana prices, which was unusual in the 1990s. However, marijuana prices have risen over the past five years, perhaps because demand is keeping prices up, despite a larger supply. This could also be due to an effect on prices by increases in quality. Although marijuana has become relatively more common, cannabis resin is still the dominant form of cannabis on the Swedish market.
"Central stimulants such as amphetamines and cocaine are judged to be more available now compared with the end of the 1980s; prices have fallen sharply at the same time as seizures have increased. As with marijuana, relatively few cocaine prices were reported at the beginning of the period but in recent years most regions in Sweden report cocaine prices. However, amphetamines are still the most common central stimulants in Sweden, although cocaine has become relatively more common compared with 20 years ago. Amphetamine prices have decreased more than other drug prices and today the price is a third of the price in 1988.
"Ecstasy, LSD, khat and GHB prices have been monitored since 2000 but these drugs are all less common in Sweden compared with the other kinds of illicit drugs (with regard to the number of price reports, seizures and court cases). Consequently, the availability trend for these drugs is more difficult to assess. However, data indicates that ecstasy, LSD and GHB are now less common than ten years ago, while khat appears to have become somewhat more common.
"Accordingly, the conclusion is that there was an increase in illicit drugs since the 1980?s, both in terms of economic availability and physical supply. However, information from recent years indicates a decrease for cannabis resin, heroin and cocaine, but not for cannabis in general, because marijuana has increased."