SWISS GO SOFT ON ECSTASY

Switzerland's highest court has flown in the face of European drug
legislation and the latest US scientific evidence by ruling that ecstasy
poses no big health problems and that small-scale dealing in the drug
should not be a serious crime.

Effectively classifying ecstasy as a "soft" drug like cannabis, the Swiss
federal tribunal overturned a one-year jail term handed to a man convicted
of selling 1,000 tablets of the drug. It confirmed a nine-month sentence
given to another man for selling 1,350 tablets by a court that considered
the case was not a "serious" offence.

The tribunal said that while ecstasy was in no way harmless, medical
evidence showed it was less dangerous than cocaine and heroin, largely
because it was not addictive.