Got a cold? Whatever you do,

DON'T BLOW YOUR NOSE IN SWEDEN



In prohibition mad Sweden even being under the influence of an illegal drug is a criminal offence and police are constantly on the watch for signs of drug use. Undercover policemen often stan outside bars and restaurants and grab customers as they come out, hurling them against a wall and jabbing a flashlight in their eyes to check pupil reactions. Things like licking your lips, looking too happy or laughing without due cause can end up with you being frog marched down to the police station and forced to submit to blood and urine tests.

Now even blowing your nose or going to the toilet too often can get you arrested in Sweden.

Swedens largest national daily newspaper, "Expressen" reported 23.11.99 that well known Swedish comedian Peter Wahlbeck, was arrested as he came out of a restaurant in Stockholm early Sunday morning.

Undercover policemen had seen him repeatedly blowing his nose and noticed that he had made frequent trips to the toilet. As he left, the police pounced and dragged him off to the police station for hours of interrogation and compulsory drug tests.

Police said his behavior was indicative of a drug user. After weeks of agonising waiting that Peter Wahlbeck described as like waiting for the results of an HIV test, the results arrived. Peter Wahlbeck was clean. He hadn't been using drugs.

The remarkable thing is that there was no public reaction. It is accepted as perfectly natural and normal in Sweden that police could apprehend someone, hold them for hours and submit them to intensive interrogation and compulsory drug tests on no other grounds than they blew their nose and went to the toilet 'rather often'.

The Swedes are a nation of conformists who set little value on personal liberty. It is inconceivable for a Swede to question the authority of the police or the powerful Social Ministry and its dictates. They seem incapable of perceiving the Stasi like police state evolving in their country as a result of their insane drug laws.

Peter Wahlbeck is a well known comedian in Sweden and his arrest got in the papers. Tens of thousands of other people who are not so well known are regularly pulled off the streets and out of clubs and bars for compulsory drug tests on the whim of police officers. They just end up as statistics in the ever rising toll of Swedens drug war.

So, if you have a cold, don't go to Sweden or you could end up being slammed against a wall by macho drug squad cops who demand you confess to using drugs "to make it easier on yourself" before hauling you off to the station for interrogation and compulsory drug tests.


Text by John Yates

Thanks to nCo for tip


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