Swiss Lawmakers Approve Plan To Legalize And Regulate Marijuana

A legislative committee in Switzerland has given preliminary approval to a plan that might legalize and regulate grownup entry to marijuana within the nation. The proposal would bar for-profit gross sales, nonetheless, and impose a tax on hashish merchandise.

The draft laws was accepted on a 14–9 vote on Friday by the Social Safety and Well being Committee of the Nationwide Council, which is a chamber of the Swiss parliament.

“In the present day, the cultivation, manufacturing, commerce and consumption of hashish for non-medical functions are prohibited,” the panel mentioned, in keeping with a translated press launch. “The vast majority of the Fee considers the present scenario to be unsatisfactory and the prohibitive method to be flawed. Of their view, strictly regulated entry to hashish with a managed market permits higher safety of public well being, strengthening youth safety and rising security.”

“On this means, customers may very well be reached extra successfully with prevention messages and directed in the direction of much less dangerous types of consumption,” the discharge continued. “The inhabitants may very well be higher protected against the detrimental results of hashish use and adolescents may very well be saved from it. The unlawful market is to be contained.”

Whereas the committee mentioned marijuana ought to nonetheless be thought-about a narcotic that’s dangerous to human well being, it proposed a sequence of adjustments to nationwide legislation that might enable adults to develop, purchase, possess and devour hashish.

CSSS-N: Réglementation globale du hashish https://t.co/FeyrBVoSyN

— Parl CH (@ParlCH) February 14, 2025

The proposal would enable adults to develop as much as three flowering hashish vegetation for private use.

Whereas the plan would additionally enable for-profit business cultivation by government-licensed growers and producers, retail gross sales could be topic to a state monopoly, with any earnings “invested within the prevention, discount of injury and dependancy assist,” the fee launch says.

Gross sales to minors could be prohibited, and merchandise would must be “packaged impartial, with out model components, with warnings and package deal inserts and child-proof.” Retailers would additionally supply non-smokable options and low-THC merchandise in an effort to scale back dangers related to consumption.

Promoting hashish merchandise, seeds, plant cuttings and paraphernalia would even be banned beneath the proposal.

Zero-tolerance driving legal guidelines would stay in place, and illicit hashish exercise could be “punished extra severely in comparison with as we speak,” the release says.

Approval by the committee is an early stage within the legislative course of. “The subsequent step is an explanatory report on the preliminary draft in order that the fee can look at these paperwork in the summertime,” the fee famous. events can even be given a possibility to supply remark at that time.

Switzerland dipped a toe into hashish legalization in 2023, launching a regulated gross sales pilot program open to a restricted variety of members in a handful of places. In Zurich, for instance, this system was open to a check group of two,100 residents, who have been permitted to purchase marijuana from pharmacies and social golf equipment.

As a part of the pilot, members answered questions on how they consumed the merchandise and their well being results, a part of a examine with the College of Zurich. The so-called “Grashaus Undertaking” examine was additionally set to be undertaken in Basel-Landschaft, open to just about 4,000 members.

In April of final 12 months, in the meantime, a separate examine launched within the metropolis of Bern. Greater than 1,000 folks from Bern, Biel/Bienne and Lucerne have been anticipated to enroll in that program; as of final spring, the overwhelming majority of candidates—practically 80 p.c—have been males. Merchandise out there from 5 pharmacies in Bern included 4 forms of cured flower, two concentrates, two tinctures and two e-liquids meant for vaporization.

Photograph courtesy of Mike Latimer.