Cannabis policy and practice in Finland: from social media discussions to citizens initiatives
Background: Cannabis policies are under increased pressure for reform across the globe, including in the Nordic countries like Finland. In this presentation I will give an overview of recent public discussions around cannabis policies in Finland which has included two citizens initiatives that managed to gather the required 50 000 signatures to be taken up for political discussion in the Finnish parliament. First one in 2019 focused on decriminalisation of use and possession and was eventually voted down in the Finnish Parliament in 2022. The second one in 2023 focused on legal regulation of cannabis and is yet to be debated by the members of the parliament.
This changing political landscape is exemplified also by recent original research conducted on cannabis discussion in the Finnish-speaking X (former Twitter) at the time when the Finnish political party Green League announced plans to legally regulate cannabis as well as research from the perspective of people who use cannabis in Finland, both recreationally and medically.
Methods: For the overview of public discussion around cannabis in Finland I will make use of the citizen initative campaign sites, media reports and published academic articles. Specific methodology in the mentioned research articles is described in more detail in the publications and briefly summarised in the presentation.
Results: Finnish citizens as well as the political party Green League have expressed increased willingness to reform cannabis policies in Finland, but so far that has not transformed to actual policy change. Closer analysis of social media discussion on X when the Finnish Green League announced plans for legal regualtion showed that the sentiment of the majority of tweets were more likely to be positive, although several positive and negative themes emerged from the discussion. People who use cannabis in Finland for medical and non-medical reasons report both desired and undesired effects from their use, but their perspectives are often ignored in policy discussions.
Conclusions: While Finnish citizens are increasingly advocating for cannabis policy reform in Finland, majority of law makers are holding on to current prohibitive policies. At the same time current Finnish government is focused on liberalising alcohol policy and sales despite warnings by experts and NGOs related to its public health impact. Both governmental inaction regarding cannabis policy and action regarding alcohol policy in Finland could be seen what Stevens (2019) describes as a "moral sidestep".
