Docklands

My colleague Mikael Jägerbrand is a science fiction fanzine publisher turned journalist turned archaeologist. Today I learned that he's also a techno fan and former rave party organiser. He's written a book in Swedish about Docklands, a controversial 90s techno club in Stockholm. A 101 page version is freely available here, and you can also buy a printed 202 page version on the site.

In the media, the Docklands club was synonymous with ecstasy, kind of Stockholm's La Hacienda ten years later with added police raids. Stockholm even had a specialised police squad called the Rave Commission, dedicated to disrupting drug use at techno clubs.

I never went to any techno clubs and the hardest drug I've ever taken was a pint bottle of Heineken when I was fourteen. So the Docklands business mostly passed over my head, even though the venue was only about eight kilometres from where I live. But I'll take this opportunity to say that, from my tee-totaller perspective, it appears silly that most countries allow hard liquor to be sold freely, while criminalising marijuana use.

I mean, I gather cannabis will make you stupid and emotionally dull if you overdose for a long time, but the only way it'll kill you is if a joint sets fire to your couch. Liquor, however, kills. Prohibition has been tried repeatedly and clearly won't work. So as a tax payer, I'd like to see the public money currently put into combating marijuana shifted into alcoholism prevention and rehab.

[More blog entries about techno, music, rave, ecstasy, cannabis, drugs, Stockholm, Sweden; Docklands, Stockholm, techno, musik, rejv, ecstasy, cannabis, droger, böcker.]