Mostly agree with all the stuff about Finland. However, some of my own observations and comments:
Drugs in Finland are usually expensive, of poor quality and some are very rare (you really have to know the right people to get e.g. LSD). This is due to our location in the periphery of Europe.
The most popular drug is cannabis. Ten years ago there was much Maroccan hash on the market, but now people are more and more growing weed at home. So the quality of the weed is usually good, but it's not easy to get. The stoners mostly sell it to one another or keep it themselves, they don't sell it on the street.
Yep, the homegrown weed is usually of a high standard - I would rate most homegrown bud I've gotten in Finland above the average weed I buy here in coffeeshops in the Netherlands (NOTE: I do
not buy the average weed, I buy the one at the top of the menu) - but recently the market has become flooded with money-hungry people. Without going too much into prices, you may nominally pay 2x the amount today you would have paid for a gram of bud 4 or 5 years ago, and back then it would be crisp, dry, and trimmed. Nowadays that 2x price tag bloats up to something like 3x if you factor in the amount of leaf, stem, and moisture in a lot of the bags you get.
Basically, if you grow it yourself, you're the friend of a person who does, or have VERY good connections, cannabis in Finland is of a very high standard, but the commercially available stuff - though barely, if at all, easier to find than before - is more expensive and of a poorer standard than before.
Hash is almost always going to be low-grade, severely cut Moroccan comparable to English soapbar at inflated prices, but occasionally you may find surprisingly good hashes. I've never seen low-grade "squidgy" or dark hash in Finland as of yet, so anything like that you encounter is likely to be something someone personally brought from India/Nepal/Amsterdam.
And now to the drug i would call our "national drug": SPEED. After cannabis speed is by far the most used illegal drug. It's a drug ingrained in our drug culture (has been since the 70's) and used by both party goers ("ravers") and hardcore speed addicts. It's always available, cheap, and usually of high quality (sometimes you get 80 % pure stuff). We are located so near the Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) where the stuff is produced that there are few people "in between" the producers and the sellers. But it's still cut, usually with maltodextrine. Finland and Sweden are the only countries in the world where speed is the #1 drug for IV users.
Yes. I was under the impression that street speed in Finland is shit, and some of it definitely is, but after hearing stories from people visiting all over, apparently the speed can be relatively pure.
I just had to point out that it is...
"always available..." -
YES -
"cheap" -
mmeehh. Be careful with saying that - anyone reading this should be aware that the prices of drugs in Finland are GENERALLY, on average, about 2-4x what you would expect to be paying in a Central European - even Western - country. So while speed is cheap in the sense that 1 gram of pure speed will go a long way compared to some other drugs you could waste your money on, the speed in Finland is multiple times more expensive than in countries geographically quite close. So yeah - drug prices in Finland are very high.
Pure MDMA is extremely rare and expensive. The E pills are poor and often do not contain MDMA at all. Mostly used in the electonic dance scene, but has spread too to other groups. The popularity seems to be quite constant through the years.
Just to illustrate the above... In my circles, the price ratio between speed and pure MDMA is more or less EXACTLY the same between Holland and Finland - so I would say Finland is expensive, and speed is cheaper than MDMA, but not that MDMA is particularly expensive in Finland and speed particularly cheap. If you catch my drift. %)
Psychedelics are rare. The user base is so small there is no profit to gain for the smugglers. Users of psychedelics are often a quite small and tight group, and if you want e.g. LSD, these people are the only ones you'd ever get if from. LSD is very rare, blotters are quite readily available but almost never contain LSD. There is no strong culture of psychedlic drugs in Finland. It's very underground. The users of psychedelics are also mostly the ones who use RC's.
Yup - you'll only run into them without extensive contacts at psychedelic trance parties and festivals, where they may even be quite openly distributed - a rare phenomenon in Finland, as people are very paranoid about drug use due to its vast social stigmas. Psychedelics are relatively cheap in Finland, close to prices elsewhere (whereas everything else is a shit-ton more expensive) as they are sold cheaply without too much economic incentive and are often given as freebies or barter them for drugs/services, since the people that are involved with them are more neo-hippie types than other junkies.
So outside of party events, psychedelics may be very cheap (and may certainly represent the best bang-for-your-buck in terms of drugs in Finland), but at parties be prepared to pay exorbitant prices for hits of what may or may not be acid and pills which were clearly designed with the intention of imitating MDMA.
I haven't bought much drugs in Germany but the Germans take their drugs more controlled than Finns, Finns often OD and take faaaar too much. The Germans are more responsible users.
I agree, and have heard this from many of my friends as well. When Finnish people take drugs, get fucked up - be it alcohol, plain old weed smoking, or other drugs - we don't fuck around, we do that shit like it's a competitive sport.
