swissinfo – Switzerland’s liberal drugs policy to be decided at polls
Cannabis and heroin are once again high on the agenda as the campaign ahead of a nationwide vote on Switzerland’s drugs policy gathers pace.Forty-five per cent of respondents in the poll said they would vote for decriminalisation, while 42 per cent came out against.
The people’s initiative foresees the legalisation of psychoactive hemp for personal consumption, while the trade and cultivation of hemp would be subject to state control. The state would also have to ensure that minors don’t have access to cannabis products.
It will be the third ballot on drugs in just over a decade. In 1998 voters rejected a proposal to decriminalise cannabis just one year after they turned down a call at the other end of the scale to introduce a restrictive drugs policy based on abstinence.
Drugs experts are pleading that cannabis consumption should be considered in a wider context.
“A majority of the government advisory committee stands by its conclusions from 1999 to find a system regulating access to cannabis products.”
Governments around the world are coming to the same conclusions – that cannabis isn’t the social harm it’s been made out to be, that lots of people like to buy and use cannabis, and that a system of regulation would better control the market for cannabis while eliminating prohibitionary harms. Will the United States during this incoming administration get onboard with the rest of the world?
One of the points made in the article by a member of the parliament was that Switzerland is a signatory to global anti-cannabis treaties, treaties that were pushed through the UN by the US. We are going to have to lead the world in ending cannabis prohibition, because much of the world prohibits cannabis because of us!
