Hi there -

quite a few of you have emailed me recently on the Swiss Cannabis issue. To
avoid having to type always the same things here is the update:


I was wondering when a person will be able to open a business in
Switzerland, such as a cafe where people will be able to by Marijuana or
Hash?

Do you know when it will be official??


Thought it was time somebody would reply to show that we are willing to
share our ideas on drug politics with our neighbouring countries. Must say
that the road "travelled" until now has been long and eventually will
continue for at least 2 more years. What you need to know is that science
and politics are on the decriminalisation side in a, I would now say,
convinced way. The entire Swiss drug politics are in fact oriented in that
direction, see:
http://www.admin.ch/bag/sucht/publist/x/publists.htm#Praevention
We also had a complete "Cannabis Report" in 1999 written by a highly
scientifically government appointed experts commission:
http://www.admin.ch/bag/sucht/drog-pol/drogen/e/revbetmg/cannabise.htm
What we now know is that after having had enough time to "think", our
government came out with a new model that somehow follows the Dutch one. The
model has been presented to the Parliaments which will have to approve it,
that includes our National parliament (somehow progressive) and also our
more conservative Cantons Parliament. If the new narcotics law is approved
Swiss people we'll be able to consume without medical purposes, cultivation
for personal use and somehow buy their Swiss cannabis within reasonable
limits (small hemp shops that keep it safe and quiet and don't go for the
money rush). You must also know that Switzerland is a country with a direct
democracy constitutional set up: that means that even if the law is approved
by both Parliaments there needs to be "only" 50'000 Swiss citizen signatures
to put the entry of the new law on a national referendum call (in other
words we'd have to vote for it). If the referendum stops the new law then we
are starting the entire "build-up a law" process from the beginning.
Recent surveys show a 55% positive vote but Swiss voters are pretty
unpredictable.
Here is the new law model (German, French and Italian only):
http://www.admin.ch/bag/sucht/d/index.htm

What the government is going to ask the police to focus on with this new law
are essentially two major issues:
- Cultivations and organisations producing cannabis with the intention to
export it outside the Swiss territory (international pressure and reputation
of the Swiss quality need to be protected)
- Prevention on minors and repression of black markets supplying teens
(schools, ...)
Now - if you are planning to come in Switzerland to open up your hemp shop
and start competing when it comes to turnover with Nestlé then you have
perceived reality in a too enthusiastic way. You should be anyhow happy to
see that Europe is turning more and more into green leaf and
decriminalisation oriented politics (see Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Germany,
Holland.). We still don't know if Holland will have to shut down it's
coffeeshops or France we'll have to open up its market to fine "Cannabis de
Bordeaux - cultivé au Château." + history will tell us

More on this at:
http://www.hanf-koordination.ch/hemp-switzerland.html



Medical MJ:

A condensed juice of information -
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_medical_info2.shtml

Now available also as txt file on:
http://www.hanf-koordination.ch/archiv-scientific.html