Daniel is 26 years old. He does not know how long he has used these syringe,
but he has not shared it with anyone. He thinks he may have hepatitis C.
Henke has hepatitis C. He has been using drugs for 19 years
and used this syringe for a week without sharing it with anyone. He is 38 years old.
Jari has used drugs since he was 13 years old. Today he is 25 and has hepatitis C.
He has been using this syringe for about 2 weeks and shared it with his cousin.
Johan is 46 years old and has been addicted to drugs for 15 years. He has used this syringe during one week
and shared it with a friend. Johan is HIV positive.
Kalle has been using drugs for 17 years. He is 35 years old. He has been using this syringe for a few weeks
and shared it with two or three friends. Kalle has hepatitis B and C.
Masoud has used this syringe once and not shared it with anyone. Although he has been
addicted to drugs for fifteen years, he is not infected.
Mike is 32 years old and has been using drugs for 17 years, but still he has no contagious disease.
This syringe he has been using a month and not shared it with anyone.
Infected
INFECTED
During the year of 2006 the number of HIV-infected intravenous drug abusers in Stockholm grew by 25%. In Malmö, a city that for several years had run a needle-exchange program, the spread of infection was almost non-existent. Nevertheless, Stockholm County Council politicians did not support a needle exchange program and treated the subject as a narcotics issue rather than a preventing infections issue.
In response, the Swedish Drug Users Union´s chairman Berne Stålenkrantz exchanged clean for used needles with Stockholm drug addicts. Johan Stenbäck, the chairman of Stockholm’s Drug Users Union, did the same. Stålenkrantz and Stenbäck then reported each other to the police, and District prosecutor Katarina Lindekrantz found that neither of them could be prosecuted.