Governance of substance use as a by-product of policing in Norway: A historical account

AIM: The aim of this article was to study governance of drug use in Norway through a historical account. METHOD: A genealogy was conducted through the study of documentation and legal texts from the 1600s until contemporary times. FINDINGS: Based on legal texts addressing people using substances (both drugs and alcohol) various strategies for governance of drug use appears. The first section describes the emergence of institutions where people with alcohol problems were confined in a system originating the Dutch discipline houses. The second section describes the poor laws of the 1800s and the practice of the local poorhouses. The third section takes a look at the Vagrancy Act of 1900 and the state-owned labour camp at Opstad. The fourth section discusses the establishment of the sobriety boards and their role in confining alcoholics at cure homes. The fifth section describes developments in post-world-war Norway, with increased attention to illicit substances. CONCLUSIONS: The terminology justifying interventions is increasingly medicalised. Descriptions of the “drunkard” that appeared in 18th-century legal texts as immoral and free are contrasted by a positioning of this character as being a slave to his drinking in 20th-century political discourses, or as substance-dependent patients in the 21st century, alongside concerted efforts to dissolve open drug scenes.