Tag: Politics

At the end of September 2023, the National Council again expressed its support for the concerns of “PI Siegenthaler”. Parliament has approved an extension of the deadline needed to draft a new cannabis law. If things continue to go smoothly, the new regulation of the cannabis market (also called legalization 😉) could thus become a reality in just a few years.

PI Siegenthaler for a new regulation of the cannabis legislation
The Siegenthaler Parliamentary Initiative (PI) was submitted in September 2020 by Heinz Siegenthaler, a member of the Bern Center National Council.
The initiative calls for a new cannabis law that will one day provide the basis for a legal and regulated cannabis market in Switzerland.  
For more detailed info on PI Siegenthaler, see our blog post on the topic.

What was the National Council about?

Actually, the responsible commission should have prepared a legislative proposal by the end of 2023. However, the parliamentarians did not live up to this ambitious schedule. In order to ensure that all the work was not wasted and that a well-prepared and broadly supported law could be passed in the end, the subcommittee now requested an extension of the deadline until the fall session of 2025. “It is really important and right to do this work with enough time,” said Barbara Gysi (SP, head of the subcommittee).

A citizen minority has now tried to stop the reauthorization of cannabis legislation. Their plan: if the commission doesn’t have time to prepare a good law, there will be no law and the status quo will remain. “The initiative, as it turns out, is contrary to international law” opined SVP National Councilor Verena Herzog. In addition, legalization would seem to encourage young people to smoke pot, while it would not dry up the black market.

Fortunately, this backward-looking polemic met with little success, and Parliament clearly favored an extension of the deadline, thus advocating for a new regulation of the cannabis market. 104 votes in favor (SP, Greens, GLP, a majority of the FDP, a minority of the center faction and even 3 votes from the SVP faction) were opposed by 69 votes against from the SVP, parts of the center and one third of the FDP.^[1]

What does this mean for cannabis market re-regulation?

Of course, it would have been great if the subcommittee had not needed a deadline extension at all. However, as is well known, things rarely move that quickly in the Federal Republic of Germany. Therefore, it is overall very positive news that the National Council has spoken out with such clarity in favor of the new regulation of the cannabis market. If everything now goes like clockwork, legalization could actually become a reality as early as 2026. The year 2027 seems more realistic, as the SVP has already announced that it wants to bring the future cannabis law before the people with a referendum.

So for us it is still: Stay patient. However, the legalization plans in Germany, an increasingly pro-legalization population, and the empirical data generated by the pilot trials to date point to a bright future. More and more, the idea of a legal cannabis market with good youth and consumer protection and without an illegal black market seems to be taking root in people’s minds. And even if this were not to happen until 2027, Switzerland would at least not be left behind in an international comparison.

The last few weeks, a new ruling by the Federal Court has been the talk of the town. The highest court ruled that an unpunished amount of cannabis (<10g and exclusively for personal consumption) cannot be seized by the police. This is another step towards the decriminalization of cannabis. In principle, less criminalization of consumers is to be welcomed. At the same time, the discussion about this ruling also shows why legalizing cannabis would be better for all sides and much less chaotic.

The regulatory jungle of partial decriminalization

Possession of a small amount of cannabis for personal consumption (<10g) and preparatory acts for consumption have been exempt from punishment in Switzerland for quite some time. For a long time, however, this legal situation was ignored by the police and the public prosecutor’s office, and fines were blithely handed out. The argumentation of the authorities was usually that it was still an illegal substance. Further, it was clear that sooner or later there would be consumption (or suspicion of past consumption), which in turn would be illegal. It was not until a 2017 ruling by the Federal Supreme Court that this practice was put a stop to. Since then definitely applies (more or less consistently implemented): Small amount & preparatory acts are exempt from punishment, the consumption itself is illegal.

However, the Federal Supreme Court left one important question open in its 2017 ruling: What happens to the unpunished quantity after a police check? Previously, the cannabis was usually confiscated. Admittedly, the question of what to do with a non-punishable quantity of an illegal substance is not without its challenges. It is therefore very welcome that it has now also been stated clearly here that an unpunished quantity is unpunished and therefore may not be seized.

However, anyone who thought that the discussion about law enforcement powers was over for the time being is unfortunately wrong again. Only a short time after the ruling, it was noted with astonishment in many places that the ruling of the Federal Court can be applied not only to cannabis but also to “hard” drugs. However, the SSK (Swiss Conference of Prosecutors) disagreed with this assessment. In order to prevent a cantonal chaos with different handling, they have urged all authorities to stick to the previous practice for hard drugs, while for cannabis it is clear that the ruling must be followed. Furthermore, the SSK called on politicians to regulate this ambiguity by law.

It could also be simpler…

As good as it is for consumers to be less criminalized – the solution is not a clean one. Not surprising really: wanting something to be illegal and unpunished at the same time probably inevitably leads to problems. If cannabis were finally legalized, the way would be clear for sensible and adapted regulation of the market. Instead of an eternal cat and mouse game between police & dealers, resources could be put into effectively fighting the big players in the black market and into meaningful prevention work. To get ideas of what that would look like, we don’t even have to look that far. On the one hand, we have already gained a lot of experience with alcohol and tobacco on how to regulate individual substances in a targeted manner. Furthermore, there are – both from Switzerland and from countries with legalization experience – various clear findings that speak in favor of legalization. Until we’re finally ready, we’ll just have to settle for CBD products when in doubt….