Cannabis and Switzerland

Pharmacists have expressed interest in becoming retailers of cannabis to the public in Switzerland. These changes in Switzerland are in line with changes happening in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, etc where cannabis is now being recognized as one of the oldest safest recreational drugs and also a plant with vast medicinal properties that can benefit a large part of society. The increasing presence of large international cannabis companies from Canada and the Netherlands in Europe and the various research and scientific reports emerging from North America  have possibly helped to fuel these changes.

I have always had the theory that one of the driving forces for Albert Einstein's shift to Switzerland was the easy access to cannabis there which formed a part of Switzerland's progressive and neutral outlook. Coupled with a cannabis culture that has probably survived unbroken for thousands of years, it is no surprise that it is one of the most attractive countries in the world to live in coming up on top of the charts across various measures.

There is definitely much more that Switzerland can do. One of the things that this small but highly influential European country can do is to be proud of its association with cannabis and to openly support the plant's legalization on the world stage. The thinking that cannabis is a drug of the lower classes and that Swiss people are an elite class, if such a thought exists in the minds of the Swiss, needs to be changed. The damage caused to the world with the ban on cannabis and from the alternatives that have emerged as replacements for cannabis in industry, recreation and medicine have destroyed all economic classes equally. Switzerland itself being the home to some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies has contributed to the world wide damage in no small measure. It is now time to stop protecting the pharma, petrochemical, military, mining, alcohol and tobacco industries that stand in the way of cannabis legalization as people's health and the planet suffers world wide. As more and more of the Swiss people reject pharmaceutical drugs and go back to cannabis, it is important for Switzerland to remember that most nations in the world are becoming dumping grounds for these pharmaceutical drugs and most people world wide do not have access to cannabis but are forced to consume prescription drugs or resort to other dangerous alternatives like heroin and other opioids, methamphetamine, novel psychotropic substances, synthetic cannabinoids and alcohol for their recreational and medical needs. This is especially true for the poorest people, the small farmers, the minorities, the indigenous communities, the sick, the elderly, the youth and women. The costs of law enforcement, the losses to the black market and the number of persons facing legal action worldwide because of the illegal status of cannabis is too much. The varieties of the cannabis plant that have gone extinct or face extinction is too much. 

 

The threat of opioids that have devastated the US in the recent past is very much at Switzerland's doors. The latest UNODC World Drug Report 2020 states that Switzerland is the world's fifth largest consumer of opioid pain relievers. The report also states that methamphetamine increasingly finds its way into Switzerland from the South-East Asian region.

 
For a country whose economy probably does not need the additional boost that cannabis can provide, it is important to remember that public health, the environment, peaceful and sustainable economic growth are probably the most important factors that affect every single nation of the world including Switzerland and cannabis is a plant that can go a long way in achieving this. Only if the world is healthy and sustainable will Switzerland be healthy and sustainable no matter how much money it has. If natural varieties of cannabis everywhere become extinct, there will be no natural cannabis left for anyone no matter what their economic status.

In December 2020,  the UN voted to remove cannabis from its most restricted Schedule IV category of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. It does however still remain in Schedule I, which is the least restrictive. This one move by the UN itself should be sufficient to bring about the recreational legalization of cannabis in every nation and an overhaul of national drug laws.

Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.

 

 

'At the global level, Germany was the second largest consumer of opioid pain relievers, with an estimated 28,862 S-DDD per million population per day for medical use in 2017, followed by Austria, Belgium and Switzerland. In Germany, the number of pharmaceutical opioids overall and the number of people receiving opioid treatment have increased over the past few decades; in most instances, prescriptions were given for non-chronic cancer pain. A review of scientific literature from Germany published between 1985 and 2016 showed that out of the 12 studies reviewed, 6 studies reported a prevalence for patients with medical use of any opioid for long-term treatment of non-cancer chronic pain ranging from 0.54 to 5.7 per cent, while four studies reported a prevalence for patients with medical use of opioids at 0.057 to 1.39 per cent of the population' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf


A new strategy each day to delay legalization while pharma companies make hay while the sun shines...I wonder if unlimited, unrestricted cannabis was part of Einstein's US move deal..

 'No country in Europe has indicated any intention of mixing medicinal and recreational cannabis into the same framework or giving medical marijuana providers access to adult-use consumers.

 Also, there are few signs that full recreational legalization is in the works anytime soon anywhere on the continent.

 The Netherlands, like Switzerland, is advancing a limited recreational cannabis experiment.

 Both are expected to provide evidence for a future debate on full legalization. But that is years away.

 In the meantime, the experiments risk potentially stalling the legalization debate while the trials are in operation.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/switzerland-releases-details-on-recreational-marijuana-experiment-but-full-legalization-likely-years-away/


'While methamphetamine trafficking flows from East and South-East Asia to countries outside the subregion remain modest, some smuggling to destinations around the world was reported, mainly smuggling from Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar in 2018 or, when the period is extended to the past five years, mainly from China and Thailand. Destinations outside the subregion included countries in South Asia, the Near and Middle East (Saudi Arabia as well as Israel), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), North America (the United States as well as Canada), Western Europe (notably Switzerland as well as Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Iceland), Eastern Europe (notably the Russian Federation) and Africa (notably South Africa) over the period 2014–2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf


Afghanistan and Mexico source the heroin and morphine. Mexico, Thailand, Myanmar and China source the methamphetamine. The Middle East and Eastern Europe sources the amphetamine. The US consumes heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Europe consumes heroin, morphine, methamphetamine and amphetamine. Asia consumes heroin, morphine and methamphetamine. Australia consumes methamphetamine. The Middle East consumes heroin and amphetamine. West Asia consumes heroin and methamphetamine. All countries grow and consume cannabis. Opioids, methamphetamine and amphetamines kill the most in terms of drug deaths, cannabis kills none. Who are the leading opponents to cannabis legalization and leading enforcers of global anti-cannabis policy? The countries involved the most in heroin, morphine, amphetamines and methamphetamines. They put on a mask of concern about harms from drugs, produce, sell and consume the most dangerous synthetic drugs and vehemently oppose cannabis legalization worldwide while clandestinely feeding their habits and protecting their sources. They use arms and armies to protect and promote their synthetic drug habits, and drug money to fund and wage a war on cannabis everywhere, pushing man and planet ever closer to death on massive scales and away from the safe, healing cannabis herb...
Jul 10, 2020, 1:14 PM
 

'The President of the Pharmacy Association in Zurich, Valeria Dora, says that more and more people in Switzerland are consuming cannabis, and that selling it legally would provide users with safe products and combat criminals profiting on the black market.

The group has penned a position paper stating its desire to decriminalize marijuana for medical and recreational use. Experts have praised the move, saying it is the right thing to do and that the necessary infrastructure and staff already exists.'
https://www.thelocal.ch/20190111/swiss-pharmacies-want-to-sell-marijuana-in-the-future-valeria-dora-cannabis


'As more jurisdictions across the planet are moving to legalize marijuana for medical and recreational purposes, it feels like a sensible move for the world’s leading health authority to publish the truth on the safety of the cannabis plant. And it has done just that… and in a big way. It was just last week that the World Health Organization (WHO) gathered in Switzerland to conduct a first-of-its-kind peer-review of the entire cannabis plant, not just specific compounds. Now, the agency’s Drug and Dependence Committee has published a new report, calling marijuana “a relatively safe drug” that causes no significant health issues, only “euphoria, laughter and talkativeness.”'
https://cannabisnow.com/who-report-marijuana-leads-to-laughter-talkativeness/


'Countries that legally shipped CBD to Canada last year included China, Colombia, Germany, Italy, Jamaica, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, according to Health Canada.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/cbd-imports-canada-fail-fill-supply-gap/


If anybody can afford it, it's surely the Swiss...

'A Swiss court has killed some of the buzz for cannabis lovers in the Alpine country.

The sale of cannabis flowers in Switzerland will be taxed at 25 percent, the same levy that currently applies to tobacco, because the drug’s floral buds are smoked in a similar way to cigarettes, the Swiss Federal Administrative Court ruled in a March 11 decision.'
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-13/swiss-court-harshes-cannabis-lovers-mellow-with-25-tax-on-buds


'The governing Federal Council said Thursday it sent to parliament a proposal to allow municipalities to run pilot projects on “the advantages and disadvantages of alternative forms of regulation,” such as the regulated sale of cannabis in pharmacies. The possession and consumption of cannabis with more than 1 percent THC, the main psychoactive constituent of cannabis, are currently illegal.

The government said 200,000 people in the country of 8 million regularly consume cannabis recreationally despite the ban, leading to a flourishing black market and high enforcement costs.'
https://www.apnews.com/9a84a86139a44adca07374700e066886



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