Aim The article outlines, at the level of political discourse, changes in drug and criminal policy that may have influenced the penal system as a backdrop to the rise of prison-based drug treatment programmes (PBDT) in Finland. Methods and Data Our perspective is historical. The article is based on historical and political documents, scholarly research and white papers. Results The history of PBDT in Finland is characterised by an absence of drug treatment programmes until the 1980s, first initiatives at the end of the 1980s, enthusiastic programme development from the mid-1990s, and decreasing interest during recent years. Unlike the National Drug Strategy, the Prison Drug Strategy aimed at a drug-free environment (zero tolerance) and implemented harm-reduction measures only to a limited extent. Conclusion The development of PBDT represents the new way of performing treatment in prisons, with features of managerialism. PBDT is also affected by an organisational segregation of rehabilitation and medical treatment, which prevents integration of harm-reduction measures with rehabilitative treatment, and is in conflict with general aims of integrating substance abuse treatment to mental and healthcare services in Finland. In the spirit of a new kind of Penal Welfarism, the role of documented individual risk and needs assessment in defining an offender's sentence has increased.

Aims The purpose of this article is to analyse the meanings given to substances as intoxicants, medicine and treatment from the client perspective in buprenorphine treatment. How do the clients construct drug-related harms and how do they act to reduce the harms? Methods The material is ethnographic and consists of participant observation and client interviews. The data is gathered from an institutional treatment facility offering buprenorphine treatment. Clients stressed the excitement of heroin use as opposed to the safety of buprenorphoine. The negative aspects of amphetamins are strongly emphasised. They did not justify the need for substitution therapy. The negative effects of heroin had a dual meaning in that they also assigned a positive user identity and justified the need for medication. The safety aspect of burprenorphine was linked to nonexistent overdose risk and to difficulty in tracing the substance in urine tests. The function of burprenorphine as an intoxicant was to restrict the harm resulting from the use of other intoxicants. The clients in substitution treatment emphasised the positive effect of buprenorfine as a medicine while those in detox emphasised the negative effects. Treatment itself receives positive meaning when it offers belief in achieving the personal treatment goal and negative meaning if it fails to do so. Conclusion The dual political role of bruprenorphine as a life saving medication and an evil drug complicates the status and role of clients in buprenorphine treatment.