FUTURE NEW LAWS ON DRUGS

A five years old federal workshop has just presented its options:

New Swiss drug laws will regulate these four sectors: repression, therapy,
prevention and compassionate help and medical prescription of heroine, and
this is reinforcing the powers of the Confederation which, up to now, was
only competent about repression.

The most controversial question remains: the decriminalization of most of
the individual behavior linked to drugs. Do we have to legalize the
consumption and the detention of small quantities of drugs? Is necessary to
concede a special statute to the cannabis?...Those are the questions.

Rather than to decide, our federal Council let the choice between five
different manners to keep prudence and innovation together:

In the most innovative variant ( prop 1 ) the federal Council and its
commission propose to legalize the consumption and the detention of small
quantities of any drug by adults . They add the possibility to give up
pursuing people for culture and trading of hemp or cannabis.

The five propositions vary in their way of application but the main point
remains the protection of minors (with a "hemp majority" at 16 years age
(for the commission) or at 18 years for the federal Council) .

We also have to protect the"public order", while encouraging the regulation
of a Swiss Cannabis market distinctly separated of the black-market.

The two projects propose to achieve that goal by a simple extension of the
"principle of opportunity" of the legal pursuit.

Up to now, that principle allows judges to renounce to exercise the penal
pursuit when they think it's better so.

That proposition would have the effect of ratifying, in a certain manner,
while regulating it, the situation that prevails today about cannabis, in
several liberal Swiss " cantons " .

In a second variable the federal Council proposes quite the contrary: the
goal is to put a end to that liberal situation: if cannabis consuming is
also decriminalized, for the other drugs the "principle of opportunity"
reigns. The culture and the trade of hemp would be severely controlled. In
that Proposition, hemp growers would be allowed and cannabis
growers...forbidden! This formula could stop the proliferation of hemp
stores. But, the federal Council says: it would have the disadvantage of
directing consumers toward suppliers on the black-market, with the
increased risk of contact with the hard drugs.

If, nevertheless, the consultation gives the preference to that
proposition, specified Ruth Dreifuss, our president, it would be necessary
to act before the beginning of next year, to forbid the culture of the year
2000 cannabis.

The federal commission proposed another way: the culture and trading of
cannabis under license. But this way would oblige Switzerland to denounce
several international conventions.