Gang War: Pusher Street (2025) s01e06 Episode Script

1
[quiet dramatic music playing]
[Mathilde] It's night,
I'm looking out
of my bathroom window, I can't sleep.
MATHILDE
CHRISTIANITE
My daughter woke me up
and she just went back to bed.
I'm standing there,
looking out, alone in the room.
All of a sudden, I hear two loud bangs.
[distant blasts]
I look down,
and I see someone running away.
Everything goes quiet.
I'm going back and forth with myself,
"Were those fireworks or gunshots?"
Then people start screaming.
[distant screaming]
What started out as an idealistic hippie
dream, ended in a brutal nightmare.
[The Wholesaler] If there's demand
for something and there's money to make,
people like me
will swoop in and capitalize.
[Larsen] On one side are the drug dealers,
On the other,
you have the combat-ready cops.
When we strike, we follow through.
[faint screaming]
[Larsen] And in the middle
are the Christianites.
SHAME
I felt like a hostage caught
between drug dealers and cops.
[man] What the hell are you doing?
They wanted to hurt each other.
It was It was war.
We thought, "Fuck them."
I've been in situations thinking,
"You're dead, you won't survive."
We got to the point
that we had always feared.
[gun blast]
Someone was shot dead on Pusher Street.
That killing was the last straw in the
decades of fighting over Pusher Street.
GANG WAR PUSHER STREE
[Norton] After the COVID restrictions
were lifted,
Pusher Street came back to life.
CARSTEN NORTON
AUTHOR & JORNALIS
But this incarnation was different.
Now, the street was controlled
by criminals and gangs.
Stall tenders started wearing masks
to conceal their identities.
It created an uneasy atmosphere.
In the past,
stalls were almost permanent fixtures.
Now, the vendors had adapted and their
stalls became extremely portable.
The dealers were well aware that the
police could arrive at a moment's notice.
They started using panic bags
or booth cloths
to stay a step ahead of the police.
These were cloths used
to display their wares.
At the pull of a string,
it's all packed up.
The shop is gone in an instant.
This was a new, very mobile,
very guerrilla version of Pusher Street
that returned in the early years
after the pandemic.
[Lykke] Things just keep escalating
and getting worse and worse.
The gang presence is
growing more visible by the day
BUY CANNABIS HERE, BUY COCAINE
AT COPENHAGEN POLICE
and the gang activity keeps building,
and the competition
between the different gangs
becomes much more apparent.
Eventually, many of the Christianites
from Pusher Street
felt that they were no longer in control
of anything in their own neighborhood.
OLE LYKKE
CHRISTIANITE
[Norton] There was this emerging pattern
of new criminal factions
elbowing their way in
and pushing out enfranchised dealers
and Christianites alike,
Now it was difficult to enforce the rules
of the street from years past.
Some of the stalls
were being shared during the day.
Sometimes people from two different
groups would sell from a single stall.
There's a huge surplus of vendors
and only room for so many stalls.
This created a whole new
unstructured market
and a volatile,
unsafe dynamic took hold.
It increased friction
between the factions,
which inevitably led
to incidents of extreme violence.
[Bille] The old infrastructure
that we had for keeping people in line
was completely gone.
You'd say,
"Hey, that's unacceptable. Get out.
KARL BILLE
ARTIST & MUSICIAN
You're getting a yogurt shower
if you don't start acting right."
Listen, I'm not a big believer
in public humiliation,
but sometimes it worked.
If someone's acting psychotic
and acting out,
well then, you get yogurt
dumped on your head.
And everyone would just start laughing.
Then they'd be shown the door.
That was the kind
of small town justice in the old days.
All of a sudden, "Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!"
So violent. Just horrendous.
MAN SHOT AND KILLED
IN CHRISTIANIA
The perpetrator is still at large after
a 22-year-old man was shot and killed
in an attack at the entrance
to Pusher Street in Christiania.
[Norton] On July third, 2021,
a group of young men were hanging out
near some stalls on Pusher Street.
Unbeknownst to them,
they were being watched,
and at some point,
one of them stood up and left.
Not too long after, a 22-year-old
Christianite joined the group
and took the vacant seat.
The perpetrators who were waiting nearby,
chose that moment to strike.
An armed assailant
approached the group of young men,
- took aim, and fired his weapon.
- [gunfire]
The 22-year-old Christianite
who had taken that empty seat
was shot in the head and killed.
[moody dramatic music playing]
That moment changed everything.
That was when we reached the point
that we had always feared.
Someone had been shot dead
on Pusher Street.
[distant scream]
I hear a man screaming in agony.
He sounds completely broken.
That left a big impact on me, and at that
moment I didn't know what happened.
I can hear him screaming and screaming.
I remember thinking, "Why isn't anyone
helping him? Where's the ambulance?"
It feels like an eternity
before the paramedics get there.
I don't know who to call
to ask what happened.
And I have no clue who's down there,
since I don't have
any more contacts in the street.
I just have to stand there,
um and wait to hear more.
Later on, they announced
it was Svend, who was killed.
[Carlo] I was at a wedding in Stockholm,
and my little brother texts me
CARLO
CHRISTIANITE
"I think our buddy's brother is dead."
He couldn't get a hold of his friend,
so I call my friend,
who confirms that his little brother
was shot and killed.
He asked if we could come by,
but you know, we were still in Sweden.
It was surreal. And we Yeah.
That moment is something
that'll always stick with me.
It was really
tragic that it came to this.
[Mathilde] It was such a shock.
People were understandably
very emotional.
Not only was this someone who was killed
so young and so suddenly,
but he is also from a large family and was
a born and raised Christiania native.
Suddenly, this market had become
so brutal and so violent
that one of Christiania's own citizens
was shot dead in his hometown.
It's absolutely awful.
Um, no one could understand
how it happened
because he was such a sweet boy.
What could he have done? It doesn't
make sense, it doesn't add up.
Who did he get in trouble with?
Why did this happen to him, of all people?
Everybody thinks it must be a mistake,
which doesn't make it any less tragic.
[Norton] When the police
began their investigation
and started piecing together the events
leading up to the shooting,
they quickly arrived at a theory
that the 22-year-old Christianite
wasn't the intended target
of the shooting after all.
The perpetrator had watched the group
and identified somebody
who had been sitting
on that chair previously,
and it was by complete accident
that that 22-year-old Christianite
was ultimately sitting in that spot
at the time of the shooting.
It hard to understand how they could
be so reckless about taking a life.
That's all it was to them.
Just some street kid.
[Carlo] He was just in the wrong place.
And it just makes you think like
"Damn, how crazy can it get?"
[Bille] I think I heard about it
in the news like most people did.
Then I stepped outside, and
A bunch of us got together
and arranged a memorial service of sorts.
A demonstration
that Christiania wasn't afraid.
A lot of us came together
to share our sympathy and our grief.
That's another thing Christiania
has always been good at: funerals.
Christiania has
the most beautiful funerals.
[moody dramatic music continues]
I have never been to such
a big funeral as that one.
It was kind of crazy, actually.
Yeah, um
It was a really beautiful service,
but it was also very sad.
He was so young.
I remember there were
a lot of people observing a moment
of silence in the street.
There were a lot of us just standing
quietly together.
It reminds you
how wonderful people can be, too.
No matter how different.
I saw people I knew
from all walks of life.
People who had been criminal, violent.
People who were stubborn activists,
people who were artists.
They all came together in solidarity.
"We won't put up with this.
We have to be here for each other."
It was a powerful feeling.
It seemed like it was a kind
of a wake-up call for Christiania.
We thought, "Shut it down. That's it."
[ominous music playing]
[Lykke] We held our usual community
meeting on violence,
to discuss how it's worse than
anything we had experienced before.
The mood in the room was heavy
and people felt strongly opposed
to Pusher Street.
But there was also a lot of people
who thought that this
was an isolated incident,
and that it didn't call for
a collective community punishment.
Some felt that those
who had nothing to do with it
should not be punished for it.
[Mathilde] The group of people
in favor of keeping the street open,
stuck with the narrative that if we were
to shut down Pusher Street,
it would be Armageddon.
There would only be more killings
and that all of Copenhagen
would run red with blood.
They were saying "Are you stupid?
Don't you get how the scene works?"
But a lot of people are on the fence
listening to all this, thinking,
"Okay, this is really not good."
The message we were getting from people
who know about this world
were saying that this
is the lesser of two evils
and changing things
will only make it worse.
At that point, when Svend was killed,
I arrived at the conclusion
that it couldn't get any worse.
I thought, I am living next door
to dangerous people,
there are stabbings and bombings.
People are getting beaten up
and having their teeth knocked out.
I can't step out of my front door
without worrying about what I might see.
For me, it can't get any worse.
I'm right at the edge.
I'm close to having to leave Christiania.
But moving and tearing up my entire
network, my family, my job,
it was just too overwhelming to even think
about under the emotional strain
of everything I would see and hear.
I was paralyzed,
I felt paralyzed by the situation.
And I felt betrayed
by many Christianites.
I thought,
"Why do you keep defending this?"
When Svend died, I started to sense
there was a different vibe of,
"This cannot go on.
Enough is enough."
[Carlo] That's when I started to think,
"Okay then, why
why should we waste more time
trying to fix this?"
The rest of Christiania had given up,
and the police were once again
cracking down.
[officer] You're under arrest.
It just went on and on,
in a vicious cycle.
There were more incidents happening
every so often,
and the violence just kept escalating.
Some Christianites start an initiative
they call "Enough is enough."
It's a grassroots movement whose goal
is to close the cannabis market.
It also stands in opposition
to the consensus democracy
that governs the community meetings
in which motions can only be passed
through a unanimous vote.
"Enough is enough" is of the opinion
that there are a few Christianites,
who may have a financial interest
in the cannabis trade,
and are blocking the decisions
to close down Pusher Street.
GANG-FREE HASH
[Mathilde] I was approached
by another Christianite
who agrees that we have to do something.
LEGALIZE
MONEY IN THE TREASURY
We have to hold a new kind of meeting.
The community meetings
keep ending the same way.
We will never unanimously agree
on effecting change in Pusher Street
as long as those who have
their finger in the cookie jar
will do everything in their power
to preserve the status quo.
We decide to try meeting somewhere
we can talk without fear,
and hear what the silent majority
of attendees
at the community meetings
think we should do.
I remember a big group of us got together
and sat in a circle on a lawn.
It was a beautiful day,
and we were just sitting there.
There's no talk of a plan yet,
but there's this sense
like we all know that every one
of us has had enough.
I finally just said, "I'm scared.
I don't think I can keep living here."
I then started to look over my shoulder
to see if anybody
outside the meeting had heard me.
You couldn't ever say stuff like that
anywhere else,
it wasn't acceptable
to feel that way about Christiania.
I remember getting emotional
because that was the first time I realized
just how many us, including myself,
had grown up in this
this culture of silence
where you weren't permitted to say how
you really felt and what you thought.
After that moment, it turned out
there were a lot of us
who thought that what has been
happening out there is wrong.
We don't want Pusher Street to continue.
The cannabis market only brings violence
and crime to our community,
and we are all in agreement that
we need to create a manifesto.
People are able to express how they
really feel just by signing their name.
It didn't take long before the list
of names was as long as the manifesto.
The list just keeps growing and growing.
The manifesto basically said,
"We don't accept living under threat
where people are being beaten and killed.
We won't live like this."
[intriguing music playing]
[Lykke] The petition got 200 signatures.
Creating a petition like that was
an entirely new concept in Christiania.
The next Sunday community meeting
ended up being extremely long.
There There was a lot
of pressure during that meeting
because we needed to come
to a unanimous vote,
but it was obvious with everyone present,
that we were never
going to reach a consensus.
So we moved on and tried to find
something that we could agree on.
We discussed legalization
as the only solution.
But from then on, it was clear
that this was an issue we disagreed on.
Then, just a few months later,
there's another murder.
In October 2022,
a young man was tending a cannabis stall.
There's a fairly long line
of people in front of the stall
waiting to make their purchases.
Eventually, a customer
makes his way to the front of the line,
pulls out a gun,
and shoots the person in the stall.
[echoing gunfire]
It's another young man,
22 years old who was shot.
[Tuxen] It was fall in the evening.
I happen to run into the rapper
Raske Penge hanging near the bikes.
KLAUS TUXEN - ACTIVIS
& FOUNDER OF HEMP PARTY
We're just chatting for a bit,
and then we hear gunshots.
[gunfire]
People start running away.
The guy who was shot walks over to us.
He looks at us, face white,
and his eyes are wide,
and he just says, "I want to go home."
The crowd groups up around him.
There's a paramedic there and he says
to the guy, "You've been shot. Lie down."
He lies down
and starts shaking uncontrollably.
- [gunfire]
- [people screaming]
[Kluck] I was at Nemoland.
A bunch of people come running.
TONNY KLUCK
FORMER DRUG DEALER
I run as fast as I can up the street,
past the Community Kitchen.
People are pointing.
"There's a guy in Pusher Street."
I'm thinking, "This doesn't sound good."
There's this Christianite I recognize
there who works in the ambulance service.
The paramedic is with him,
he's trying to resuscitate him.
Then he looks up, "He's gone, he's gone."
We were like, "No way."
It was like something out of a movie.
My friend and I talked about how
how surreal it was.
It was like something
out of an American gangster movie.
[Kluck] It was too late.
He died there in Pusher Street.
- [interviewer] How does that feel?
- Unpleasant.
I get choked up, thinking about it.
[Mathilde] By now, I've seen my fair share
of violence and murder,
but I just remember my boyfriend
and I looking at each other.
It was a gunshot.
We don't say a word about it
because the kids are right there.
Once we put the kids to bed, I
I completely broke down.
I feel stuck living with it everyday,
and I don't want
to be trapped by it anymore.
[journalist] Is there a man hunt going on?
- Not at this time.
- [journalist] Why not?
We have no leads at this time.
[Bille] The "Enough is enough"
group came in and said,
"Enough is enough!
We're peace-loving people
and we're done with the cannabis."
Another group of Christianites
is there, like,
"What are you even talking about?"
That was the aftermath.
There was a huge split in opinion.
A lot of people have beef with each other
and miss the old Pusher Street.
I get that.
Those were certainly happier times.
You can't just flip a switch
and have things go back
to the way they were before,
when everyone was getting along,
before there were cops all over the place.
It was a more accommodating time,
politically, in Denmark.
[Mathilde] There was a shift happening
for many people internally.
The same one I'd been feeling.
There was finally an open dialogue
about how maybe there shouldn't
be a hash market in Christiania.
It was a growing group of us
who thought that the time had come
to actually do something.
Volunteers were handing out fliers
at the main entrance
around the clock,
urging tourists and customers
to boycott the market
and buy their cannabis somewhere else.
Posters were put up all over the place.
Letters and opinions were printed
in Christiania's local newspaper.
"Enough is enough" began, along
with other organizations in Christiania,
to organize spontaneous shutdowns
of Pusher Street.
At one point, they put into place shipping
containers and concrete blocks
on either end of the street,
making it impossible to enter.
They spray painted
on the barricades the message
that if you wanted to help Christiania,
you needed to go elsewhere
to buy your drugs,
because Pusher Street is out of control.
GET YOUR CANNABIS ELSEWHERE
FREE CHRISTIANIA
[Mathilde] A lot of people started
receiving threats
for publicly supporting
the closing of Pusher Street.
The longer it went on, the more intense
and dangerous the threats would get.
People were afraid
and pulled their names off the manifesto
because it was getting so volatile.
They felt like it was safer
before we started.
[Larsen] The "Enough is enough" coalition
is struggling to effect change,
so Pusher Street returns
to the status quo.
Drug sales continue, and a blind eye
is turned to the rise in violence.
Tensions between bikers
and other gangs rise in Christiania.
In 2023, the worsening conflicts
come to a head,
and the stall "Best and Cheapest"
is the scene of a shooting.
[Lykke] New people affiliated
with the Loyal to Familia show up.
There's a group of them,
and people notice them when they arrive.
"What are they here for?
They're here to do something."
They go to Stjerneskibet.
There's a Hells Angels stall just outside.
Someone's working the stall,
and they're here for him.
[gun cocks]
They shoot him.
[gunfire]
He runs into Stjerneskibet
and they're right behind him.
[gunfire]
They fire again and keep shooting.
[dramatic music playing]
Four other people are hit in the attack.
[gunfire]
One is a Christianite who is shot five
times, including once in the neck.
[Mathilde] My family and I
had all just moved
into a lovely home in Christiania.
It's not far from the market,
A few hundred meters.
I'm home, I hear the shots,
and I look over at my boyfriend,
and he nods at me.
"Yep, not fireworks, gunshots."
People start screaming and running.
[gunfire]
[Carlo] When I heard that people
came in on bicycles with guns
I started running because my mom
was out with my son at Grønne Hal.
I was really nervous.
My son had just turned three.
I couldn't
exactly be sure where it was happening.
I'd never felt adrenaline like that.
I mean, you just spring into action.
I jump on my bike, and just
He's so excited he goes,
"Dad Fireworks, I heard fireworks."
And I'm just like, "Phew."
You know, once you become a parent,
you suddenly have so much more to lose.
It's a whole other type of nervous.
You're a different person
when you're a dad.
[moody music playing]
[Mathilde] I've seen so many tragedies.
At this point it almost feels normal.
As far as I remember,
it's daytime or early evening.
I got word right away
that my neighbor Ali had been shot.
I was so worried about her.
The one at Stjerneskibet was bad.
I knew one of the victims.
He was shot many times.
A murder that affects innocent people,
people who have been
in Christiania forever,
and even a minority, Greenlanders,
with their own sacred place
The fact that these new gangs
can't even respect
their house,
it was beyond disrespectful, beyond wrong.
The Greenlanders have always held
such a dear place in this community.
I mean, it just goes to show
just how callous it all really is.
[Norton] The killing that occurred
at Stjerneskibet was the straw
that ultimately broke the camel's back.
It was the third killing
in as many years.
They've seen the accidental killing
of a born and raised Christianite.
They've seen the targeted shooting of a
stranger working behind a cannabis stall,
killed in what appears
to be an assassination.
[gunfire]
Now, an individual
who is known to have ties
with the Hells Angels biker gang
was killed at Stjerneskibet.
Multiple bystanders and another
Christianite are injured in the attack.
After this murder in August 2023,
supporters of the Pusher Street
shutdown immediately win out.
[quiet dramatic music playing]
[Mathilde] There's a community meeting.
The feeling in the room is,
"It's not an outside police officer
out there, fighting for his life.
Now it's our neighbor
fighting for his life."
People are upset.
No one knows how it'll end.
The community meeting is held at Grå Hal.
Everyone shows up.
People can always tell when big decisions
are going to be made at these meetings.
You can feel it in the air.
It's gotten so bad,
it can't get any worse.
No one can tell us otherwise.
We give our statements.
About why it can't go on,
why the street should be shut down,
and why we can't support it any longer.
Then, people from the other side stand up
and say why it should be preserved,
and why all of us in Christiania
should support it.
There's a handful of people that feel
it's unfair that a minority opinion
is able to dictate how the majority
of Christianites live their lives.
Then someone gets up and says,
"The street should be closed.
Anyone who agrees,
get up here and keep it short."
I line up for the microphone,
more and more people start standing up,
more people are daring to stand up,
and it turns into this long, long line.
It becomes clear that almost everyone
at the meeting agrees.
There are still holdouts who are
frustrated, grumbling off to the side.
Somehow, we had found a way
to shine a spotlight on the few people
who were still holding up the vote.
It became clear to the dissenters
just how small of a minority they were.
At the same time,
serious talks had started
between Christianites
and the outside authorities.
The police, the City of Copenhagen,
and the Danish
Justice Department together
all took part in this series of meetings.
These meetings
had a single item on the agenda:
The permanent shutdown
of Pusher Street.
If you look at it
from the authorities' point of view,
this was the first time
that the entirety of Christiania
was willing to cooperate
on the shutdown of Pusher Street.
[contemplative music playing]
The community was actually
in agreement on this
for the first time in many, many years
that it should be shut down.
It was time to rethink it.
[Mathilde] I felt okay
for the first time in a long time.
I really felt it.
I felt this euphoria because,
finally things were going to change
because Christiania
was finally ready to change.
There were finally resources
available to us
now that the authorities
were getting involved.
On a spring day in 2024,
something happened
that no one could have imagined.
Christianites, the authorities, and the
police together, shut down Pusher Street.
The decision is made
to tear up the cobblestones
and to take a coordinated approach
to combat the cannabis market
going forward.
[Mathilde] I woke up excited
to pull up the cobbles.
It was a beautiful day,
and the sun was shining.
I was optimistic
that this was the turning point.
Welcome to the closing of Pusher Street
and the opening of Christiania.
It's very important to us
that the first stone
RISENGA MANGHEZI
CHRISTIANITE
be taken by Christianites,
by Christiania's future.
It was cool that we were the ones
to take that first stone.
We wanted the next generation to have it.
[people cheering]
I felt so, so relieved.
And there was this very powerful
feeling of community
and a belief that things can be better.
This was my childhood home,
I walked to school on that street.
But at the same time I also know
that two murders happened
on those cobblestones.
It's such a powerful symbol for me.
[Carlo] It was this bumpy street
with crooked cobblestones.
It was this part of you,
you were ready to move on from.
It was amazing to be a part of it.
[people cheering]
Hummelgaard and Sophie wanted to take
the first stone, and we're like "No way.
You're just here for your ten minutes
of fame, and then you're out of here."
We're the ones who have to deal
with pocket dealing.
It's obvious that the Christianites
couldn't have done it
without the help
of the government and the police.
PETER HUMMELGAARD - MINISTER
OF JUSTICE, SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
We were able to help them
reach a peaceful resolution
for the first time
after years and years of failure.
[Mathilde] There are a lot of us
here watching.
History tells us that
it's not gone forever.
Of course, there's still this concern
and skepticism surrounding how do we
keep the momentum going?
As time goes on,
as the weeks and months go by,
we're all feeling a little bit shocked
that it's working.
There's almost no dealing happening
like there was before.
Sure, there's been a handful of people
pocket-dealing around the corner,
and some of the dealers
just moved up the square a little bit,
but it's nothing
compared to how it was before.
The police are telling us that they have
made very few or no arrests at all.
It honestly feels like a miracle
for Christiania
and nobody can really believe it.
We're all just waiting
for the other shoe to drop.
THE END OF THE WORLD
WE ARE STRONGER TOGETHER
For the skeletons to come out
of the closet again.
I'm very proud that we were able
to essentially weed out organized crime,
roots and all, in Christiania
and get rid of them permanently.
From our side of things,
this wouldn't have been possible
without the help
of the Christianites speaking out.
I have nothing but positive things to say
about the, uh, the many Christianites
that we've gotten to know
and worked closely with
on the way to reach this goal.
This is a critical moment in both
Christiania's and Denmark's history.
[Larsen] They manage to close down
Pusher Street as we know it.
Months go by, and the dealers
have yet to make a return.
[Norton] If you look at the rest
of Copenhagen,
the police believe that
the overall volume of the cannabis trade
has remained unchanged.
It simply shifted to new platforms.
Now there are new digital platforms
which have supplanted
the longstanding physical marketplace.
[Hummelgaard] The cannabis market
in Copenhagen, too, is still here.
It has taken on a different shape,
but the shape it has taken so far
is easier for the police to deal with
and seems less dangerous.
There's no doubt that many people
have made tons and tons of money
there for many decades.
Of course, it would be naive for us
to think that they wouldn't jump
at the chance to go back to that.
And that's why it's essential
that we continue to offer support
for the Christianites' and their ongoing
development plans for a new Christiania.
It's also essential that the police
continue to keep cracking down
if there's even the smallest sign,
the slightest chance that even one
of these really, really, harmful gangs
or other groups show any indication
of trying to return to Christiania.
I don't think that the final chapter
has been written yet,
but we've already come so much further
than we could have hoped.
[Lykke] My view on Pusher Street
has always been the same.
I wanted to get rid of Pusher Street, but
it should have been through legalization.
Legalization could start
by following the example
of Sweden's
government-owned liquor stores
or like what they have in California
and half of the united States.
You can go somewhere
where they specialize in cannabis.
You would get proper guidance
on what to buy and how much
and you would know exactly
what you're buying.
They tell you about the strength,
and you know who to talk to
if you need to complain.
You could have cafes and similar places
where you're allowed to smoke.
I'm unsure if it's something
I'll experience in my lifetime.
I've already lost two bets that it would
happen in the next five years.
I'm not so sure
it's something I'm gonna see at all.
I don't believe
that the legalization of cannabis
or other controlled substances
is the way forward.
And I'm dead serious about this.
Most importantly because it's harmful.
It's extremely harmful even.
I grew up around people who have
suffered from cannabis-induced psychosis
and were never the same.
I have yet to see convincing data
from countries or states
where it has been legalized
where it has led to more security,
less crime, or fewer gangs.
In many other places,
it appears that the exact opposite
has happened.
That's why I'm not particularly inspired.
It's naive to think that legalization
will have any substantial effect
on gang and criminal activity.
That's why I don't think legalization
is the way to go.
[intriguing music playing]
[Lauridsen] Considering how many
resources and man-hours
the police have poured into this,
it's hard to make the argument
that the effort has been successful.
MOGENS LAURIDSEN - FORMER HEAD
OF OPERATIONS & RIOT SQUAD
There are no fewer cannabis users
now than there were
when I joined the force in '77.
The police's only focus
is on the fact that it's illegal,
so they are constantly
focused on fighting it.
As long as there is a demand for it,
it's nearly impossible to curb it.
If you want to change anything, you have
to influence attitudes towards using it.
Otherwise, it's a never-ending battle,
no matter how illegal you make it.
There's so much money at stake
that there are people who will sell.
[quiet dramatic music playing]
[Norton] Now, when we look at Christiania,
post the closure of Pusher Street,
it is clear that the obvious sale
of cannabis has all but disappeared.
There are, without a doubt,
still ways to buy cannabis in Christiania.
There are also places
in the old Pusher Street
where small-scale trading and pocket
dealing is beginning to ramp up.
But overall the cannabis business
has been all but eliminated.
It's a new era for Pusher Street.
[Carlo] It's the fourth of September 2025.
I'm going to show you Pusher Street
and our transformation.
The old street was all about cannabis,
and now that's pretty much gone.
There's hardly any of it left,
just a little bit.
Here we are at the square.
Here's where you can see the area
that's seen the most obvious changes.
Before, there were 35 stalls
crowded around this little area here,
all the way around.
The Community Kitchen
is on the right here.
It was actually the dealers who helped
create this beautiful little area here.
We haven't seen the police here yet.
They're often out here
during the day patrolling quietly.
There aren't as many dealers anymore.
A few sell out of their pockets.
It's always been like that.
Christiania has always been for that.
You can still find
a little something to smoke,
but scaled down to two percent
of what it was before.
Now, you can let your kids run around
and play in the street safely.
It wasn't like that when I was a kid.
Back in the day,
there was a lot of tension.
There were stalls on both sides,
and it got sort of suffocating.
Now things have opened up
in a completely different way.
Here we have our local mama,
Bente, in her usual spot.
She's been part of Christiania's
downtown scene since forever.
She's seen it all,
and I'm sure she's delighted
to have some peace and quiet.
During the day, it's fine,
but after seven at night, it's not great.
BENTE MOREN
CHRISTIANITE
It'll take a lot for me
to go out after dark.
- I'm surprised to hear you say that.
- Yeah.
You used to know the regulars
who were here at night.
- Yeah, that used to bring some safety
- Yeah.
in the old days of Pusher Street.
- You knew all the faces.
- There are a lot of strangers around now,
and there are a lot of fights
happening at night.
- Really?
- Yeah.
[contemplative music playing]
I'm really surprised by that.
This is the end of Pusher Street here.
The old yellow line.
Cannabis not allowed, cannabis allowed.
So that's Pusher Street.
[contemplative music fades]
[upbeat bluesy rock music playing]