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Sweden

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Sweden
Sverige
Stuor Dáhtá lake on the Kungsleden trail, Kvikkjokk
Stuor Dáhtá lake on the Kungsleden trail, Kvikkjokk
Capital Stockholm
Continent Europe
Subregion Northern Europe
Cannabis Status
Legal Status Illegal (industrial hemp of approved varieties permitted)
Status Since 1968
Enforcement Own use a crime; a minor offence takes a fine or up to six months' imprisonment
Documentation
Growing Regions 0
Growing Areas 0
Accessions 2
Conservation
Populations none documented yet


Sweden is a country in Northern Europe where hemp, hampa, was grown and retted for its fibre from the first centuries AD.[1] The state supported the crop until the mid-1960s. Growing industrial hemp was later prohibited altogether.[2] Since 15 March 2003 hemp may again be grown, but only of an approved variety and with an application for farm support. Hemp grown without such an application counts as the production of narcotics.[3][4]

Cannabis is a narcotic under the Narcotic Drugs Penal Act of 1968 (narkotikastrafflag).[5] Its use has been a crime since 1 July 1988.[6] The government restated in 2002 and again in 2016 that the overarching goal of narcotics policy is a society free of narcotics.[7][8]

Geography

Hemp pollen of about AD 100–200 has been found near Lake Storsjön in Jämtland.[9] The usual way of retting it was to sink the stems in lakes or streams for about three weeks. Place names such as Hamptjärn ("hemp tarn") are common in several parts of the country for that reason.[2]

By the early 1950s hemp was grown only on Gotland.[10] In 1964 it covered 530 hectares of the island's arable land, which was a little over 80,000 hectares.[11] Since hemp was permitted again in 2003 most of it has been grown in Skåne, just over 700 hectares in 2024 on the preliminary figures.[12]

Observers had reported cannabis in Sweden 1,541 times to the species observation system Artportalen by October 2026.[13]

Demographics

Two Swedish survey series show cannabis use among young adults rising in the 1990s and 2000s, then levelling off and, after 2018, falling somewhat. Over 2004–2024 about 12 per cent of the people aged 16 to 84 who answered the National Public Health Survey had used cannabis at some time. In 2021, 3 per cent of the population had used it in the past 12 months.[14]: 23 In the survey of 2024 reported to the European Union Drugs Agency, 15.2 per cent of adults aged 16 to 64 had used cannabis at some time and 6 per cent of those aged 16 to 34 had used it in the past year. Among school students aged 15 to 16 the lifetime figure was 4.9 per cent.[15]

Agriculture

On Gotland in the 1950s hemp was grown under contract, normally by 400 to 450 growers on about 1,000 hectares. In 1951, 332 growers sowed 832 hectares; in 1953, 505 growers sowed 1,144 hectares; in 1960, 295 growers sowed 682. From 1953 to 1959 the straw harvest averaged about 4,450 kilograms a hectare and the seed about 65 kilograms. Growers were paid on average 630 kronor a hectare. The Board of Agriculture explained their interest in the crop, despite that low return, by the difficulty of farming the island's fenlands, where hemp was valued in the rotation. The straw was processed at the factory of the Gotland hemp growers' association in Visby. In 1959 and 1960 some growers turned to a new variety of French origin. It gave a much higher yield of straw and more fibre from it, but no seed in Sweden.[10] By 1964 the area had fallen to 530 hectares, sown by 213 growers.[11]

In 2004 the area was about 150 hectares. The area passed 800 hectares in 2007 and fell to 43 in 2014.[12] It rose from 292 hectares in 2023 to 883 in 2024 (912 on the preliminary figures) and 1,740 in 2025. The preliminary figure for 2026 is 2,505 hectares, most of it in Skåne.[12][16] The varieties allowed are those that the European Union approves for cultivation. All of them contain at most 0.30 per cent THC.[4]

Cannabis in Sweden

The Swedish hampa is attested from 1530; the variants hamp and hampe were in use from the 16th century. It corresponds to Danish hamp, Icelandic hampr and German Hanf. Svenska Akademiens ordbok derives it from an East European, probably Finno-Ugric, loanword taken into Germanic before the Germanic sound shift. The same entry has the expression indisk hampa ("Indian hemp"), the name of the variety Cannabis sativa var. indica and of the intoxicant hashish made from it.[17] Elof Hellquist traced the word to a Germanic *hanap-, corresponding to the Greek kannabis. In Hellquist's account Greeks and northern Europeans both borrowed the name from Eastern Europe, and hemp, unlike flax, did not belong to the oldest layer of European crops.[18]

History

Archaeological finds

Mikael Larsson and Per Lagerås found seeds, stems and pollen of hemp in a waterlogged context in a Roman Iron Age settlement at Lindängelund, near Malmö. They take the finds to show that hemp was grown and processed there in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and call them "the earliest robust evidence so far for hemp retting in Scandinavia". They propose an introductory phase, about AD 1–400, when hemp was grown on a small scale and probably processed within settlements. In the Migration Period, about AD 400–550, in their account, hemp is found mostly as pollen in lake sediments.[1]

Hemp pollen and seeds of the Viking Age, AD 800–1050, are known from the area of Lake Mälaren near Stockholm and from around Storsjön. In 2013 G. Skoglund, M. Nockert and B. Holst examined ten plant-fibre textiles of the Viking Age and early Middle Ages, kept in churches and radiocarbon-dated to AD 780–1420. All had been taken to be flax. Four of them, among them two pieces of the Överhogdal wall-hanging, were made with hemp, three of them mixed with flax. The authors concluded that hemp was used in Scandinavia for fine textiles and not only for rope and sailcloth.[9]

Rope and sail (1530–1966)

A royal proclamation of 1737 concerned the promotion of hemp sowing.[17] Carl Linnaeus wrote in 1751 that hemp "was sown here a great deal by the farmsteads" (Hampa såddes här mycket vid gårdarna).[17] Until the early 20th century hemp was indispensable in shipping, because it kept its strength when wet. The rigging, ropes and sails of sailing ships were of hemp, and so was fishing gear. The state supported hemp growing in several ways. After the Second World War the crop declined sharply.[2]

In 1941 a government bill on support for flax and hemp processing expected about 100 hectares of hemp to be grown. It put the area needed to meet the whole national demand for soft hemp at about 2,000 hectares.[19] A bill dated 30 December 1965 proposed that support for growing fibre flax and hemp should no longer be paid.[11] The subsidies ended in the mid-1960s. Growing industrial hemp was later banned, in the Institute for Language and Folklore's account because it is hard to tell apart from cannabis high in THC.[2] Until 2003 all the above-ground parts of the plant except the seeds were narcotics under Swedish law, so hemp could not be grown.[3]

Botanists and herbaria (1702–1798)

In 1702 Antonius Christophori Münchenberg, then a tutor at Vall on Gotland, pressed hemp gathered In agris ("in the fields") as number 361 of a herbarium book. Bengt Pettersson, who studied the book in 1948, listed it among the species that were certainly cultivated. The entry carries one of the long passages on medicinal uses that Münchenberg translated from Simon Paulli's Flora Danica (1648).[20]: 224, 226–227, 248

Linnaeus adopted the binomial Cannabis sativa in Species Plantarum (Stockholm, 1753), the internationally recognised starting point of botanical nomenclature.[21] The name stands on page 1027 of the second volume, dated 1 May 1753.[22] The lectotype of the name is a sheet in Linnaeus's herbarium, Herb. Linn. No. 1177.2. William Stearn designated a different lectotype in 1974, a pistillate specimen of the Clifford herbarium.[22] In 1798 J. E. Forsström gathered a sheet of hemp grown in the academic garden at Uppsala.[23]

Drug control (1909–1993)

The encyclopaedia Nordisk familjebok reported in 1909 that the Swedish pharmacopoeia had formerly listed Herba Cannabis indicae, used to prepare Extractum Cannabis indicae, and that the extract had since been dropped. It held that European hemp almost entirely lacked the narcotic properties of the Indian form.[24] In 1967 the government called the narcotics ordinance of 14 December 1962 (No. 704) the basic instrument of narcotics control. Of the earlier international conventions it counted those of 1925, 1931 and 1936 the most important.[25]

Sweden signed the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs on 3 April 1961 and ratified it on 18 December 1964.[26] In 1965 a government commission on the care of drug addicts, the Narkomanvårdskommittén, was appointed. The scholars whom Josefin Månsson reviews hold that drugs then came to be seen as a social problem more than a medical one. In their account Nils Bejerot was an active public debater with a central role in the police, close ties to the first national police commissioner and a part in teaching the police about drugs.[27]: 29–30

The bill that introduced the Narcotic Drugs Penal Act stated in December 1967 that cannabis misuse had been largely unknown in Sweden but had grown more frequent in recent years. The bill called cannabis indisk hampa (Cannabis sativa) and listed haschisch and marihuana among its names.[25] The act was issued on 8 March 1968.[5] A government bill of December 1987 proposed that the consumption of narcotics itself be made punishable. A person guilty only of own use in a minor case was to be liable only to a fine.[28] The change came into force on 1 July 1988. From 1 July 1993 minor cases of own use could also be punished by imprisonment.[6] Sweden ratified the Convention on Psychotropic Substances on 5 December 1972 and the 1988 Convention on 22 July 1991. It became a party to the Single Convention as amended by the 1972 Protocol on 5 December 1972.[29][30][31]

Cultivation

Industrial hemp

To grow hemp in Sweden a farmer must grow industrial hemp: an approved variety, for which an application for farm support has been sent in.[4] The ordinance on the control of narcotics excludes such hemp from its definition of cannabis.[32] The rule came into force on 15 March 2003. It followed the preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Communities of 16 January 2003 in Hammarsten (C-462/01), which the Halmstad district court had sought in the criminal case of a person who had grown industrial hemp of an EU-approved variety in the spring of 2001.[3]

Germplasm

The Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) holds three hemp accessions of Swedish provenance, NGB 13860, NGB 13861 and NGB 13862. They came from the Vavilov Institute in St Petersburg, where they were numbered K 412, K 371 and K 419, and were received on 10 November 1999. All three are breeding or research material.[33][34][35] Duplicates are kept in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.[36]

Preparations and consumption

M. A. von Wachenfelt measured THC in 1,100 samples of cannabis resin and 600 of marijuana seized by the Swedish police, and published the results in 1984. The content varied widely: in the resin mostly with its origin and age, in the marijuana with the origin and race of the seed.[37] The THC content of hash seized in Sweden was almost twice as high in 2024 as ten years earlier.[38]

In 2019 the Supreme Court held that a so-called CBD oil containing THC was a narcotic, although it had been made from industrial hemp that was not itself classed as a narcotic. The exemption for industrial hemp does not extend to preparations containing THC.[39]

Trade and commerce

More than 10 tonnes of cannabis were seized in Sweden in 2024, a historically high level.[14] In the figures for 2024 or the latest year reported to the European Union Drugs Agency, 7,273 kilograms of cannabis resin were seized in 15,973 seizures and 2,652 kilograms of herbal cannabis in 6,071. Cannabis oil was seized 640 times.[15]

K. Moeller and C. Lindholst wrote in 2014 that the Scandinavian markets had traditionally been supplied with cannabis resin trafficked from Morocco through Amsterdam and Copenhagen to Sweden and Norway. They added that the markets were now held to consist more and more of sinsemilla grown at home.[40]

Anyone who unlawfully possesses, uses or otherwise handles narcotics commits a narcotics offence, punishable by up to three years' imprisonment. A minor offence, judged by the kind and amount of the drug and the other circumstances, takes a fine or up to six months. A gross offence takes two to seven years and a particularly gross one six to ten.[5] Narcotics may be imported, exported, made, offered for sale, transferred or possessed only for medical, scientific, industrial or other especially important socially useful purposes.[41]

The control ordinance defines cannabis as the above-ground parts of any plant of the genus Cannabis, seeds excepted, from which the resin has not been extracted.[32] The Medical Products Agency lists cannabis and cannabis resin in its first schedule, of substances that normally have no medical use; extracts and tinctures of cannabis are in the second.[42] In 2024 two medicines containing cannabinoids were approved in Sweden: Sativex, for treatment-resistant spasticity in multiple sclerosis, and Epidyolex, for treatment-resistant epilepsy in children with Dravet or Lennox–Gastaut syndrome. Just over 300 patients were prescribed Sativex in 2017, just under 700 in 2021 and just under 300 in 2022.[43]

Henrik Tham calls Swedish drug policy the strictest among the Nordic countries.[44]

Enforcement

When the government proposed in 1992 to make the rules on own use stricter, it described the court practice of the time: possession for own use could be judged a minor offence at most up to 80 grams of cannabis resin. The minister held that these limits should be lowered somewhat.[45]

K. Moeller and C. Lindholst wrote in 2014 that Swedish sentencing practice took the normal potency of resin to be 4 to 6 per cent THC and the low potency of marijuana 2 to 3 per cent.[40]

Growing Regions

Landrace cannabis growing regions currently documented on the wiki: No growing regions documented yet.

Growing Areas

Landrace cannabis growing areas currently documented on the wiki: No growing areas documented yet.

Accessions

Map

List

Accession IDNamePriorityCollectedArea
Forsström s.n. (1798)Forsström herbarium specimen, Uppsala academic garden (1798)
Münchenberg 361 (1702)Münchenberg 361 herbarium specimen, Gotland (1702)

Conservation status

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility lists 568 preserved specimens of Cannabis gathered in Sweden. The Swedish Museum of Natural History holds 219 of them and Lund University 118.[13] The museum also holds Münchenberg's sheet of 1702 and Forsström's of 1798, both of plants grown in Sweden.[20]: 248[23]

Recent news

No recent news items.

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Larsson, Mikael; Lagerås, Per (2015). "New evidence on the introduction, cultivation and processing of hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) in southern Sweden". Environmental Archaeology. 20 (2): 111–119. doi:10.1179/1749631414Y.0000000029.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Hampa". Institutet för språk och folkminnen (in svenska). 7 October 2025. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Socialdepartementet (2021). Tydligare reglering av hampa (Report) (in svenska). Stockholm: Regeringskansliet. Ds 2021:34.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Odla hampa". Jordbruksverket (in svenska). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Narkotikastrafflag(SFS No. 1968:64), 8 March 1968.Sweden.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Justitieutskottet (1993). Åtgärder mot bruk av narkotika samt ringa narkotikabrott (Report) (in svenska). Sveriges riksdag. Betänkande 1992/93:JuU17.
  7. ↑ Regeringen (17 January 2002). Nationell narkotikahandlingsplan (Report) (in svenska). Stockholm. Prop. 2001/02:91.
  8. ↑ Regeringen (4 February 2016). En samlad strategi för alkohol-, narkotika-, dopnings- och tobakspolitiken 2016–2020 (Report) (in svenska). Stockholm. Skr. 2015/16:86.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Skoglund, G.; Nockert, M.; Holst, B. (2013). "Viking and Early Middle Ages Northern Scandinavian Textiles Proven to be made with Hemp". Scientific Reports. 3 2686. doi:10.1038/srep02686.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Kungl. Maj:t (17 February 1961). Kungl. Maj:ts proposition nr 49 år 1961 angående fortsatt stöd åt lin- och hamphanteringen, m. m. (PDF) (Report) (in svenska). Riksdagen.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Kungl. Maj:t (30 December 1965). Kungl. Maj:ts proposition nr 11 år 1966 angående avveckling av stödet till odling av spånadslin och hampa (PDF) (Report) (in svenska). Riksdagen.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Karlsson, Ann-Marie (27 August 2024). "Odlingen av hampa drygt 900 hektar år 2024". Jordbruket i siffror (in svenska). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Occurrence search: Cannabis, Sweden". Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Guttormsson, Ulf (2025). Narkotikautvecklingen i Sverige (PDF) (Report). CAN Rapport 235 (in svenska). Stockholm: Centralförbundet för alkohol- och narkotikaupplysning. ISBN 978-91-7278-378-2.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "European Drug Report 2026: annex tables". Lisbon: European Union Drugs Agency. 2026. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  16. ↑ Karlsson, Ann-Marie (15 May 2026). "Nya rekordnivåer för hampaodlingen". Jordbruket i siffror (in svenska). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 "Hampa". Svenska Akademiens ordbok (in svenska). Vol. 11. Svenska Akademien. 1930. col. H 225. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  18. ↑ Hellquist, Elof (1922). Svensk etymologisk ordbok (in svenska). p. 223 – via Project Runeberg.
  19. ↑ Kungl. Maj:t (1941). Kungl. Maj:ts proposition nr 333 år 1941 (PDF) (Report) (in svenska). Riksdagen.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Pettersson, Bengt (1948). "Antonius Münchenbergs herbarium vivum". Botaniska Notiser (in svenska) (2): 223–269. Retrieved 10 October 2026.
  21. ↑ McPartland, J.M.; Small, E. (2020). "A classification of endangered high-THC cannabis (Cannabis sativa subsp. indica) domesticates and their wild relatives". PhytoKeys. 144: 81–112. doi:10.3897/phytokeys.144.46700.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Cannabis sativa L." International Plant Names Index. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 306087-2. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "Specimen S07-8837: Cannabis sativa L." Herbarium Catalogue (S). Swedish Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 11 October 2026.
  24. ↑ Westrin, Th., ed. (1909). "Hasjisj". Nordisk familjebok (in svenska). Vol. 11. Stockholm: Nordisk familjeboks förlags aktiebolag. cols. 47–48 – via Project Runeberg.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Kungl. Maj:t (29 December 1967). Kungl. Maj:ts proposition nr 7 år 1968 med förslag till narkotikastrafflag, m. m. (Report) (in svenska). Riksdagen.
  26. ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 15. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  27. ↑ Månsson, Josefin (2017). Cannabis discourses in contemporary Sweden: Continuity and change (PDF) (PhD thesis). Stockholm: Department of Social Work, Stockholm University. ISBN 978-91-7649-750-0.
  28. ↑ Regeringen (3 December 1987). Om ändringar i narkotikastrafflagen (1968:64) (Report) (in svenska). Prop. 1987/88:71.
  29. ↑ "Convention on Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 16. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  30. ↑ "United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances". United Nations Treaty Collection. Chapter VI, 19. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  31. ↑ "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, as amended by the Protocol amending the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961: status". United Nations Treaty Collection. United Nations. Retrieved 3 October 2026.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Förordning om kontroll av narkotika(SFS No. 1992:1554), 10 December 1992, bilaga 1.Sweden.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  33. ↑ "Ex situ PGRFA doi:10.18730/1JW8FC: NGB 13860, Cannabis sativa L." Global Information System. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  34. ↑ "Ex situ PGRFA doi:10.18730/1K78Y6: NGB 13861, Cannabis sativa L." Global Information System. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  35. ↑ "Ex situ PGRFA doi:10.18730/1K073Z: NGB 13862, Cannabis sativa L." Global Information System. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  36. ↑ "Occurrence search: Cannabis, holding institute SWE054". Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  37. ↑ von Wachenfelt, M. A. (1984). "Die THC-Gehalte in Cannabis und Cannabisharz in von der schwedischen Polizei beschlagnahmten Partien". Archiv für Kriminologie (in Deutsch). 174 (5–6): 167–178. PMID 6098232.
  38. ↑ Guttormsson, Ulf; Åström, Viktoria (2026). Drogprisutvecklingen i Sverige 1988–2025 (PDF) (Report). CAN Rapport 243 (in svenska). Stockholm: Centralförbundet för alkohol- och narkotikaupplysning.
  39. ↑ "Dom, mål nr B 177-19" (PDF) (in svenska). Högsta domstolen. 18 June 2019. Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Moeller, K.; Lindholst, C. (2014). "Sanctioning Large-Scale Domestic Cannabis Production – Potency, Yield, and Professionalism". Scandinavian Journal of Forensic Science. 20 (1): 20–27. doi:10.2478/sjfs-2014-0002.
  41. ↑ Lag om kontroll av narkotika(SFS No. 1992:860), 18 June 1992.Sweden.Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  42. ↑ "Läkemedelsverkets föreskrifter (LVFS 2011:10) om förteckningar över narkotika". lagen.nu (in svenska). Retrieved 14 October 2026.
  43. ↑ Statens beredning för medicinsk och social utvärdering (10 April 2024). Cannabinoider vid smärta (Report). SBU Kommenterar (in svenska). Stockholm. 2024_02.
  44. ↑ Tham, Henrik (2021). "On the Possible Deconstruction of the Swedish Drug Policy". In Tham, Henrik (ed.). Retreat or Entrenchment? Drug Policies in the Nordic Countries at a Crossroads. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press. pp. 129–158. doi:10.16993/bbo.f. ISBN 9789176351635.
  45. ↑ Regeringen (10 December 1992). Om åtgärder mot bruk av narkotika samt ringa narkotikabrott (Report) (in svenska). Prop. 1992/93:142.
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