In Anarchic Corner of Copenhagen, Police and Dealers Play Cat and Mouse | Hacker News Reader

In Anarchic Corner of Copenhagen, Police and Dealers Play Cat and Mouse

nytimes.com

34 pointsmshenfield55 comments

To be exact, the only thing sold there is hash, though the article insists on using the blanket term "drugs". The reason it's sold there is that the commune has decided that it's unfair to label hash as a drug (unless nicotine or alcohol are also labelled as drugs, which they are in a sense of course). Christiania is the most drug-free area in all of Copenhagen.

https://www.bt.dk/krimi/klar-tiltale-hashkoebmaend-ville-pla...

You are right for the most part though. The cocaine dealers are around Vesterbro.

I'm told if you want other drugs, they aren't sold on Pusher Street itself, but on the side streets. Someone will direct you.

(I really am just told this, although it's from people I'd expect to know.)

That's not unique to Copenhagen or Christiania in particular.

In any city it's easy to find drugs if you want to. Just don't look like a cop and you'd be surprised at what you can find if you ask around.

Don't try to ask that in Christania you might end up in trouble or atleast get an angry answer. Drugs aren't sold on the side streets either. They are sold everywhere outside christania like by the central station. Take if from someone who spend every day there. Got a friend who was drunk and was doing cocaine in one of the establishments there and when it was discovered he got beaten up and banned from the place.

I assume those guys in the know was talking about the side streets outside Christiania? While drug trade can happen everywhere it is actually pretty controlled in Christiania because it is a tight-knit community which is self-policing. If you want to buy drugs (besides Hash) in Copenhagen you go to the sketchy areas behind the Central Station.

You can also buy cannabis flowers in Christiania.

This article and some HN comments paints an unfair picture of Christiana. I go there every now and then because of the nice vibe, lush green environments and musical events. No idea why there are comments about arabic majority. The place is full on european or scandic. In the end they sell cannabis, something that is widely used and partly legal in the US.

Makes me wonder whether there's an Agenda behind this article. Who's paying for it? Who's behind it?

I'm a European immigrant to Copenhagen, and by chance lived on Christianshavn for the first few months, so I asked many Danes what they thought of Christiania.

There was a wide range of views.

Older people (40+) tended either to moderately disapprove, or to be very tolerant. Younger people (25-35) were more extreme; they either strongly defended the place as you do, or were definitely against it. I haven't asked enough youths to be able to generalize. People from Copenhagen were often less tolerant than those from Funen or Jutland.

I think it depends when people last saw it, how often, and in what circumstances they visited.

Going on a wet November evening just to buy drugs isn't great, it feels dodgy. Warm summer evenings are nice -- just like everywhere else in Denmark. Pusher Street felt very tense a couple of years ago; I was approached by "security" for having a camera over my shoulder, but this summer it's very relaxed, since the stalls are open and no longer covered in camouflage netting.

That cannabis is legal-ish in some of the US isn't especially relevant. It makes as much sense to compare a Danish pub during American prohibition.

> I go there every now and then because of the nice vibe, lush green environments and musical events.

I visited Copenhagen last year and went to Christiana to see this vibe, greenness and artists. Instead I mainly saw teenagers drinking, and lots of litter. Another comment below mentioned that the legalization of drugs will hopefully bring Christiana back to what it used to be since it will not longer be the place to go get drugs.

Christania is a big place, most tourists just take the quick tour through pusher-street and a few other places. You should have spend a bit of time there with a local. Been coming there for 20 years and i keep discovering new things and people there that amazes me. The greenness and artists is there as well if you know where to go.

The best places to get illegal drugs are places you and I and most other people don't know about.

I think it is really muddying the issue to conflate hash with "drugs". And I do think it was part of the original vision of Christiania that people should be allowed to smoke hash if they were so inclined. It was conceived as a "free town", not as a clean tourist attraction or art fair.

It's a shame that NYT visited on a dark overcast day. I've been to Christiana a few times and on good summer days it's absolutely amazing, full of greenery, colorful art and happy people just enjoying life.

People who are interested in the history of Christiania, how it was almost destroyed by heroin in the 1970s (resulting in the current ban on hard drugs), and the lives of children who grew up in the early days of the freetown might want to watch the documentary Christianias Børn.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7584234/

Haha been there while working for Startup based in Copenhagen, that place is bonkers. Go if you have a chance!

> One reason the police cannot carry out more forceful raids, Mr. Laugesen said, is because they do not want to shock the crowds of tourists who come to gawk, and buy.

Wait until a wet Tuesday evening in October, and the police will use more force. I saw this a few times when I lived very near Christiania; it was around the time they had the problem with the serious criminal.

I'd be more tolerant of the drug market if they refused to sell cannabis to under 18s, but the dealers will sell to anyone.

Assuming legalization continues its progress: I'm looking forward to Christiania being able to return to its artistic vision without the drug tourism.

A legal, age-verified, purchasing process would help a lot of places get out from under the crushing weight of tourist drug traffic, while also ensuring safety and product quality.

It is really muddying the issue to call hash "drugs".

Only if we don't also call alcohol and caffeine drugs.

when police comes by and does a raid, weed is being sold again 10 minutes later.. that's how its been for 40 years. police use it as a practice ground and often escalates conflicts to get the new trainees some more realistic stressful situations as not much else is going on in Denmark. its the most calm place when police are not around. i come there almost every day, even after i quit smoking.. it just has so much to offer. last year my Norwegian friend came by for a sandwich as police raided the place and some kids threw rocks back at them so the police grabbed my friend eating his sandwich as a shield.

I was there in June 2016 with my wife and kid, the place felt very uncomfortable with very sketchy and aggressive looking folks all around. Groups of police officers were sitting in small buses in the bushes. I definitely wouldn't want to have such a place in my city.

I think you took the wrong tour. Christania is so much else than pusher-street which granted have shady looking kids setting weed but that's what you get for criminalizing it.. the ones you need to fear there is the police. Christania is a place full of different nationalities and people which are very open and sometimes alternative. Its one of the nicest green areas where you can just go and enjoy a conversation, have a cup of coffee or play some backgammon. they have vegetarian restaurants, non-alcohol cafes, stand up club, some of the best music venues, jazz clubs. they have open air concerts throughout the summer. they have skating and other sports. you can practically sit anywhere and start a conversation with someone. try doing that outside in the city and people will probably look strange at you. is very kid friendly. my toddler can run free around. Its where a lot of us goes to get away from the "normal" city life.

Went to Christiania, it's a complete dump filled with weed dealers, happy pants stalls and people touting Far Eastern mysticism. The only thing that's curious is the slow decay of the buildings and the ageing hippy / anarchist population still trying to cling to the 1970s.

I was hoping to find some form of libertarianism there but instead all you see is the ubiquitous forms of leftism.

Also none of the cafes accepted bitcoin...

/sigh

I lived very close by for a few months, and now live a little further away in Copenhagen.

There are a few nice places (cafes etc), but I mostly agree. Without the draw of drugs, the arty/anarchist/squat/whatever areas of other European cities are much more interesting -- populated by artists etc rather than dealers.

I thought the litter (discarded food wrappers etc) summed it up. An anarchist/hippie commune with green ideals, which can't somehow arrange picking the plastic out of the bushes.

(The former Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin was the best example.)

Libertarianism is a word coined by leftists and coopted by capitalists.

you went the wrong places.

yes, you are right. I should have never went to Christiania.

One of my greatest regrets in life is not being able to take pictures inside Christiania. It has some of the greatest blow ups (graffiti) I've ever seen. 10 years ago it was absolutely mindblowing wildstyles.

It's hard to wrap your head around just how sketchy the place is though, even with the open-air drug-dealing going on. Honestly it reminded me of Times Square in the early 80s with the sex replaced with more drugs. There is a large, almost exclusively muslim criminal element there and Christiania's residents depend on their money.

You can take photographs throughout Christiana, just not in the small area called 'Pusher Street' for the reason mentioned in the article.

> There is a large, almost exclusively muslim criminal element there and Christiania's residents depend on their money

Source? I have never heard Muslim and Christiania mentioned in the same breath before. I live in Copenhagen, near to Christiania.

I also take issue with that statement. I've been to Christiania 3 times as a tourist and the drug market looks about as diverse as Copenhagen in general. Also, I've never been able to figure out who is a tourist like me, and who is dealing drugs or acting as a lookout. Nor can one tell the religion of a person simply by looking at them.

I didn't "just look at" people. I spent time there and got to know locals, including one or two of the Pusher street lookouts.

Oh and they were the ones who told you there was an "exclusively muslim criminal element"? Because the police claims the hash trade is largely controlled by the biker gang Hells Angels - but maybe your investigations have uncovered better information?

>Also, I've never been able to figure out who is a tourist like me, and who is dealing drugs or acting as a lookout.

Doesn't that disqualify these observations though? That's a pretty basic skill to have to talk about such a place.

I don't recall dealers being predominately Muslim. That sounds like anti-immigrant propaganda.

Organized criminal activity in any country is a function of migration patterns and poor economic opportunity/integration. Inevitably this always happens and it doesn't matter what ethnic/religious group or what country they move to. I am not making anti-immigrant claims, just stating the current state of affairs that are a result of 20 years of immigration patterns in Denmark.

The Christianity drug trade is to a large extent controlled by the Hells Angels biker gang.

There is/was a substantial Jewish drug trade in Melbourne. Unsurprisingly, organised crime isn't restricted to any particular religion or ethnicity.

Sorry I meant to say that the Christiania hash trade is controlled by Hells Angels. I don't think Hells Angels are particularly Christian despite the biblical name! It is just to point out that the guy saying the trade is "exclusively muslim" is talking bullshit.

OK, factoid time. The Hells Angels started out as a social group for retired WWII pilots who liked motorcycles.

Crime in general is a function of socioeconomic status, where migration patterns usually involves a flow of people where those who migrate has relative low socioeconomic status.

There are exception to this when people of high income, wealth, and education moves to an area where the relative socioeconomic status is lower. A typical example is popular (often warmer) tourist locations, and in those cases we don't usually see anti-immigrant views gaining popularity. Following this we could draw the conclusion that anti-immigrantion politics is simply a proxy for politics in regard to an a influx of low socioeconomic people regardless of ethnic or religious backgrounds.

> A typical example is popular (often warmer) tourist locations, and in those cases we don't usually see anti-immigrant views gaining popularity.

Citizens of Marseille might disagree. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/marseille-eu...

Front National is very popular there.

> The bus passes through the poorest districts of the poorest city in France. Almost 40 per cent of people who live here are below the poverty line.

You won't see a lot of rich immigrants moving to the north part of Marseille and become active in a drug war between rival gangs.

> I have never heard Muslim and Christiania mentioned in the same breath before.

Really? The Bosnian immigrant who shot the cops talked about in the article had ties to Millatu Ibrahim and was claimed by Isis after the shooting. It was in the news.

Is this really the first time you're hearing this?

One Bosnian immigrant. How does that equate, proportionally, to violence in Malmö?

Um, not even remotely related to the topic of conversation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Your statement was "There is a large, almost exclusively muslim criminal element there ..."

That's pretty inflammatory. You stated this as fact when it appears to be your subjective opinion.

I am genuinely interested in data to support that claim since it is counter to my own experiences having lived 10 minutes from there for years and daily follower of the Danish and International media.

Taking that one incident does not prove your statement. "One swallow does not a summer make."

Thank you for your reality check.

There are way too many statements which are easily echoed blindly but just as easily fact-checked (and all too often, debunked) by going for a walk there. Thank you for doing and speaking about the latter.

I lived quite close to Christiania for a few years, and did visit quite often. My observations were that there are definitely people with Middle-Eastern looks amongst the dealers, but there are also people of other ethnicities. The dominant skin colour was white.

That being said, try visiting Fælleskøkkenet a Friday night. There will usually be a lot of Arabic-speakers.

Christiania does, at least it did back then, make money from the sales. Occasionally, the dealers would have specific days where all the proceeds went to the Christianian community.

I've never heard about photography being forbidden anywhere but on Pusher Street itself.

I haven't been there for five years though. Things might have changed.

The word 'drugs' is a stretch. Its mainly just marihuana ('just' as for me that's normal as I am Dutch and it is decriminalised here though I myself don't use it). Harddrugs are not acceptable. This sign makes that more than clear in Danish and English [1].

To put that in perspective (I already mentioned marihuana decriminalisation in The Netherlands):

1) Danes go to Sweden to buy cheap liquor because alcoholic beverages in Denmark are more expensive than in Sweden (EDIT: I stand corrected, the other way around, thank you @clan). Same with Danes living near the German border. Alcohol, if abused, is a harddrug.

2) Going down more south of Europe is Portugal who have decriminalised drugs [2].

Wikipedia has more info on Christiania [3].

Denmark is an interesting country for a variety of reasons; they actually have a startup scene as well, and are aiming to be self reliant with regards to electricity.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Chritian...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/05/why-h...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania

Wrong. Swedes go to Denmark for alcohol[1]. But yes - Germany is cheaper.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/6040e408-ed33-11e6-ba01-119a44939...

Woops, thank you for the correction!

There is not actually a lot of crime in Christiana, except for the hash trade. For harder drugs, prostitution etc. you will have to go to other parts of Copenhagen. And you can take pictures everywhere in Christiania except for the short stretch of street called Pusher Street.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com