First Lady Tours Swedish Drug Center for Mothers

Over the din of screaming babies, First Lady Nancy Reagan talked Tuesday with women drug addicts who were either pregnant or had recently given birth.

The women, patients at a Swedish government rehabilitation center, told Mrs. Reagan that having a baby gives them a motive for giving up narcotics.

This prompted the First Lady to chuckle and say, “Well, the answer is for everybody to have a baby, obviously!”

Later, Mrs. Reagan choked back tears as she told the Swedish Lions Club about an American youth who had died of a drug overdose. The youth’s sister had written to Mrs. Reagan and scrawled the word help! across the bottom of the page.

Mrs. Reagan also chatted briefly with Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, lunched with Queen Silvia and dined with U.S. Ambassador Gregory J. Newell, wrapping up a two-day visit to Sweden. Today she is scheduled to rejoin her husband at the economic summit in Venice.

During her stay here, she encountered hundreds of anti-American protesters in the streets, but she declined to comment on this.

“I’m here to talk about drugs,” she said.

And she did. Sweden is the eighth country Mrs. Reagan has visited in her anti-drug campaign. Sweden, with a population of 8.3 million, reported it had 20,000 drug users in 1979, including 10,000 classified as heavy users.

Mrs. Reagan began her day Tuesday with a social call to Carlsson’s office, where she also talked with Lisbet Palme, the widow of the late Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was assassinated Feb. 28, 1986. The assassin remains unknown.

Mrs. Reagan later visited the small Moringen Women’s Treatment Center. The name is translated as “the mooring,” and according to the center’s director, Kaarin Peters, is meant to convey the idea of a safe place in stormy weather.

As Mrs. Reagan and the director talked, a 16-month-old girl roamed the room, hid behind a curtain and threw a set of keys at Mrs. Reagan’s feet. Finally, the child burst into tears. Sensing that her visit might be disturbing the routine, Mrs. Reagan pointed across the room to an old-fashioned cherrywood cradle she had given the center and said, “Why don’t you put her in the cradle?”

Mrs. Reagan obviously had a wonderful time with the babies, cuddling and kissing them and handing over one of her earrings.

“Did you come here voluntarily?” Mrs. Reagan asked former resident Gith Johnsson, who was holding her 2-year-old son and her month-old daughter.

“Yes, in a way,” Johnsson said, explaining that the authorities had given her a choice of entering the treatment center or having her son taken from her.

“But now everything is all right?” Mrs. Reagan said.

“Yes,” Johnsson replied.

“Are you married now?”

“No, I’m single.”

“But you’re off drugs?”

“Yes.”

After lunch at Drottningholm Palace with the Royal Family, Mrs. Reagan and Queen Silvia attended an anti-drug forum sponsored by the Swedish Lions Club.

“I want you to know that I’ve been impressed with what I’ve seen in Sweden,” Mrs. Reagan told the crowd of about 200 volunteers. “I can see that people like you in private organizations are working very successfully with the government.

“I want to close with a message for the drug dealers and producers and pushers, and the message is this: The parents and young people of the world are going to drive you out of business. We’re the ones who are going to be the pushers from now on. We’re going to push you out of our schools, out of our communities, out of our countries and out of existence.”