Sweden asks mayor not to legalize pot

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Swedish lawmakers have asked the mayor of Copenhagen, Denmark, to ditch his efforts to legalize marijuana, saying the decision could affect the whole region.

Mayor Frank Jensen and the Copenhagen City Council have pushed for legislation to allow the controlled sale of cannabis in an effort to take control of the drug trade from criminal gangs, The Copenhagen Press reported.

In a letter to the mayor, elected officials from 19 local councils in southern Sweden said they "were against all measures that involve a relaxation of our attitude towards narcotics in the Oresund region."

"You run the risk of more young people using the drug if you start selling it in Copenhagen in state-run dispensaries," Anders Akesson, the head of the green political party Miljopartiet, told Sweden's Sydvenskan newspaper.

Jensen called efforts to stop the open sale of cannabis in Copenhagen's Christiania area as a "vicious spiral."

"But the way we have tried to limit cannabis over the years has not worked. For the past 20 years, we have made it the job of the police to stop the cannabis trade, but cannabis has never been bigger than it is now," Jensen told The Copenhagen Post in an interview this year.