It’s known as a ‘hippie paradise’ – but is it? Whatever our opinion, it’s a drug-fuelled tourist destination where utopia and dystopia seem to be rolled into one.
Fristaden Christiania (Christiania Freetown), also known as Christiania or simply the ‘Staden’, is a commune and ‘micro nation’ situated in a neighborhood occupying the low beaches and islets between Danish capital, Copenhagen, and Amager island.
There, the Amagerkaner live in a ‘anarchist consensus democracy’ – whatever that means.
It all began in 1971, when ‘proto hippies’ squatted in a military base situated there.
Over 50 years after, Christiania is the fourth largest tourist attraction in Copenhagen, with half a million visitors annually. The reason? Weed.
Its ‘Green Light District’ (or more famously, ‘Pusher Street’) is famous for its open trade of cannabis, which – by the way – is illegal in Denmark.
The inevitable happened. Starting in the 80’s, gangs started pouring in the area, fighting to dominate the lucrative drug trade there.
Associated Press reported:
“Copenhagen’s mayor on Monday urged foreigners not to buy weed in the city’s Christiania neighborhood where a 30-year-old man was shot and killed and four others injured two weeks ago due to gang turf wars fighting over the marijuana trade in the area.
The Aug. 26 killing was the latest in a bloody feud between rival gangs, the Hells Angels and the outlawed Loyal to Family. Both are trying to monopolize the sale of cannabis in Christiania.”
A 28-year-old man, affiliated with the ‘Loyal To Family’ gang, was arrested in relation to the shooting.
“’The spiral of violence at Christiania is deeply worrying’, Copenhagen Mayor Sophie Hæstorp Andersen said. She called on ‘the hundreds of thousands of visiting tourists and the many new foreign students who have just moved to Copenhagen to stay away and refrain from buying weed or other drugs at Pusher Street’.
[…] ‘It may seem innocent to buy weed for a festive night out but think about the fact that your money ends up in the pockets of criminal gangs who shoot in our streets and put innocent people in danger’, Andersen said.”
The mayor’s plea is highly unlikely to generate any decisive action or any change in behavior.
The Amagerkaner, once again, called for the drug stalls and booths on Pusher Street to be closed – like they do every time a shooting occurs.
Although the cannabis trade is illegal, for over half a century authorities have been unwilling to stop it. It also doesn’t help that the open drug trade is one of Copenhagen’s major tourist attractions.