For me the most impactful sentence here is the acknowledgement that the war on drugs failed. This is obvious to a lot of us, but to politicians to say this, could mean they are actually not tangled up with the drug lords. Cheers for Switzerland, hope the legal marijuana trials triumph with positive outcomes.
The war on drugs was widely successful when you start considering that it was never meant to combat drugs. It was a political maneuver to divide the populace.
Nope, here in Brazil they love to copycat the US where it fails the most, like education, healthcare, prison system and war on drugs. Sadly the whole south america follows this path at some degree.
At least then you can take the money out of the cartels and despotic regimes. You can then use the tax money raised to offset the harm these drugs absolutely do through social policies and rehabilitation programs that actually work
Also helps ensure the drugs are clean. The US marijuana legalization process has absolutely not been perfect but the regime of testing for pesticides and mold is very effective.
If cocaine were legal and regulated you wouldn't be hearing all these stories of people dying of fentanyl overdoses from doing shitty cut coke.
It does make me wonder where they swiss government will acquire their coke. With weed, it's fairly easy to grow it wherever you need to, but with coke, you pretty much have to be in certain regions, yeah?
If that's the case, is this still going to be supporting those same cartels? If more countries legalized, we could maybe hope to see legally grown, harvested, and processed coke without all the slave labor and shit. Could be a real boon for South American countries, too, if the cartels lost power, and the cocoa plantations could be nationalized.
I just woke up, so I may be just talking out my ass, though
That's only true if you believe the lies that the "war on drugs" was actually about drugs. It never has been, it was always about having an excuse to incarcerate and beat down groups they didn't like; minorities, the poor, and the left.
When you look at it that way, it's obvious that the war on drugs is actually a really successful means to an end. Just try not to have a heart and think of the countless lives they ruined to keep a boot on peoples' neck.
No, we keep it illegal and go the Ollie North strategy. Invent a more addictive form of cocaine (crack), and sell it to minorities to fund secret wars for oil in South America.
People. Cocaine is not maryjanes. You can get addicted badly to cocaine. There's tons of neurological effects that will cause you to not function proplerly in society. By all means smoke your ganja but don't equate hard drugs with it.
I have a completely different problem with cocaine. Namely that it is extremely exploitive to the people who grow the coca. It takes about two acres of coca plants to produce just one kilo of cocaine. Obviously, that means the people who farm it are paid virtually nothing and live on starvation wages. If it's really cheap in Switzerland, that makes it worse.
On top of that, coca plantations are responsible for huge amounts of deforestation in an area of the world that should not be deforested.
However- hundreds of thousands of people are working in coca plantations and own small coca farms and if this all ended, they wouldn't even have the meagre wages they make from coca farming. So I don't know what the solution here is.
Lots of highly addicting stuff is legal, I don't care if people do cocaine. Make it legal and safely accessible so drug addicts can participate in society and not have to fund cartels
Idk, it seems like a pretty big jump in addiction potential. I don't hear of too many people going into sex work to support their alcohol and cannabis habits.
I do support at least decriminalization of all drugs though. As long as it coincides with adequate education, harm reduction, and therapy resources.
Yeah it's always the same thing. "Guys, you can smoke cigarettes, but weed will fry your brains and leave you completely useless to society. Legalizing would be a disaster".
Yes, light and legal drugs are not okay as well. They too may cause severe health (including mental health) issues, as well as addiction.
THC, alcohol, nicotine and even caffeine cause significant and measurable harm, and you'll be much better off by restricting them long-term, unless you have medical indications to consume them.
If you need any of them to relax or to have a good party or to stay productive, remember it is NOT sustainable and actively harmful and something has to be done about the way you organize your life. You can't go on like this forever, it will get you eventually
What consenting adults do with their body is their own business.
Bodily autonomy is an all or nothing thing. Whether you're talking about abortion, gender affirming surgery, taking a dick in the ass and in the mouth at the same time, or shooting meth into your dick. It's all the same thing.
I don't necessarily disagree, but this brings up the next round of tough questions:
If your bodily autonomy is absolute, fine, but what happens when your choices and their impact start to spill beyond your own personal life?
If you want to go wild with hard drugs, okay fine, whatever. But when you need medical attention because of that decision, should insurance providers or the state be obligated to spend in order to treat you?
When your addiction costs you your job and support network, should the collective taxpayer have to subsidize your poor life choices?
I don't mind the notion that individuals should have final say over what happens to their bodies, but that sort of assumption of responsibility, at some point, cuts both ways...and the flip side of some of these decisions would suggest that the individual should bear all consequences of their decisions...which seems unlikely in practice. We're not going to see an addict rushed to an ER and the hospital toss them out into the street saying, "This was your decision! Sorry!"
And the mitigation measures seem equally unlikely to fly with the "strict bodily autonomy" crowd: increased insurance premiums or exception clauses in policies in order to keep expenses reined in for the rest of the policy holders/taxpayers who aren't using their strict autonomy in a way that adversely affects others.
While it's fine to conceptually discuss these decisions in a vacuum where it only affects the individual, in real life application, these decisions have impacts outside the individual in almost every case, which fundamentally shift the discussion.
There are plenty of "hard drugs" you can do with very little damage to your body. Cocaine is not one of them. In fact, it's one of the worst things you can do for your heart.
Nobody is saying that people should start taking cocaine. Just that you shouldn't get your life ruined by having it / using it.
Also, knowing that what your getting isn't mixed with mdma, amphetamines, ketamine and being able to properly monitor your dosage instead of guesstimating the purity and doing brain arithmetic is very helpful.
There's a major difference in having the person who sells it to you wanting you to quit vs wanting you to consume more.
Man, I just don’t get how that many people would like coke. It’s a shitty high, that doesn’t last nearly long enough, that has massive implications for your long term health, and it costs way too much for what you get. $50 of weed = enough for a week+. $50 of coke = maybe 30m if you’re not sharing. I’m glad I never really got it, it’s too much of a rich persons drug for me to have ever been able to service an addiction to it.
Worth noting that a gram of coke currently goes for a nationwide average of around 100-150 USD in Switzerland, and about 200-250 in the US, per the data I looked up.
Different supply levels of and ease of access to various drugs make them comparatively more or less expensive. Combine that will a user base of above-average wealth and it makes sense.
I agree regarding the absolute value of the two drugs though. Coke is fine, I suppose, but nothing I want to shell out the money for - but then again, I'm not in Switzerland so who knows.
Removing impurities is really tricky, but that said, it's not like industry grade equipment and operations are being used here to manufacture it. There may be a simple step or two that would help significantly reduce impurities.
Your comment also made me realize for the first time, a lot of these illicit drugs are made by hobbyists, so to speak, not professional manufacturers. Just knowledge isn't enough, and I say that as a chemical engineer. If I tried to synthesize anything at home it would have a high degree of impurity -- even if I bought some nice lab equipment.
There's probably a lot of benefit in having the government subsidize a pharma company to make high purity drugs. The impurities could be responsible for a lot of side effects.
I bet many go out of their way to avoid getting proper equipment because those purchases can get them on a list. It's legally safer to produce sketchy shit, and since you're breaking the law anyways, who cares if what you're selling is really what you say it is.
Profit comes from volume, you can take the risk of selling to as many people as possible or you can inflate your volume with other cheaper shit and never even consider the bit of powder that remained in a lethal dose-sized clump as you mixed it.
That's like saying that the best way to reduce harm from alcohol is to make good strong alcohol cheap so people wouldn't drink eau-de-cologne and denaturate.
Problems with alcohol are not limited to it sometimes being mixed with poison.
Problems with cocaine didn't start with it becoming illegal.
Let's please not talk as if it's normal to consume it.
Tell that to my two infrequent user friends who decided to share some cocaine at home, after going out the bar, catching up after not seeing each other for a while who both died from fentanyl overdose.
Inert cutting agents that simply dilute the product are not type of impurities in the sense that I was talking about. And I think there’s clear.
Also. when inert cutting agents are used without the user knowing the potency they are more liable to overdose. Legal and regulated cocaine would not have fentanyl or levamisole etc, and the potency would be printed on the bottle.
I've had friends that were cocaine addicts and some that really hit the bottom. This seems insane to me, this isn't a fun and easy drug like weed imo. I've always lumped coke with meth and heroin.
Its harm potential is somewhere in between. To put it in perspective, alcohol is worse than heroin. And like alcohol addicts, your friends should be able to get a clean and safe source to reduce damage, and the help they need without any fear of persecution.
You can't criminalize problems away. It evidently didn't help your friends.
I don't think alcohol is worse than heroin by any means, although the harm that alcohol does is definitely underestimated.
I'd also like to say that I don't necessarily think the use should be criminalized. Putting addicts in jail solves nothing and the justice system should be concentrating on the ones that sell it. Making it legal will just make more addicts, and won't help the ones that currently are.
It's also harder to stop abusing something if it's sold in every city legally. Dealers go to jail and their numbers can be deleted.
Decriminalization but making the sale highly illegal while offering free rehab to the ones that need it is the way forward imo.
My friend's brother just died of heroin overdose a few weeks ago and I just couldn't help but feel for him. How many dark alleys did he have to go to to get his high? How many sketchy people were involved? Did he have access to clean needles? He overdosed alone, and likely felt subhuman due to being relegated to the fringes of society just to get his high.
Legalization would not have kept him from getting high, but it certainly would have enabled him access to clean drugs from a safe place, clean needles, and possibly made him viewed as someone who enjoyed getting high and not a piece of shit addict. He had a problem and it being illegal only made it worse for him.
Legalize it all. He was an adult, it's his body. He can do what he wants with it, it's nobody's place to tell anyone what you can or cannot consume. He loved getting high on heroin and I don't see a problem with that.
Yeah there is no safe amount of cocaine to do. There is also no safe amount of alcohol to do. At least if shit is legalised people can decide to use cocaine or not with informed consent and can be sure they are actually getting pure cocaine.
I had a friends cousin die from using cocaine but it was because they had bought it off a street dealer and it was tainted with fentanyl. They just wanted to have a little extra fun on a night out on vacation. They'd be alive and well if cocaine was legal.
Prohibition doesn't work. It just adds suffering and stigma to addiction. One of the biggest factors to addiction is isolation something that criminalizing health issues greatly contributes to.
Yes but they aren't legalizing it because it's fun and safe they are legalizing it because jailing people over drugs does not help them and there is no point in filling your jails with such a high percentage of your population.
I don't think that would be a good idea. We want it to be refined so it's high purity and safe (or as safe as it can be).
If anything I would suggest the opposite -- make it legal when refined, and have a government agency certify they meet a certain quality. You'd want to encourage people to take the refined version, which has known composition and materials. The unrefined street product would be illegal, but the only "punishment" would be confiscation. No jail time, except perhaps for manufacturers who are knowingly getting people sick with their product.
I agree with you. I know a lot of people who are cocaine addicts and their addiction makes them all incredibly unreliable. They stay up partying until 7am then crash for 12 hours the day of a big event. I've also known people who died due to tainted cocaine. It's not a safe drug by any means. I'm all for decriminalization and treating it like a health issue, but it should not be taken lightly.
Swiss cocaine so cheap and widely used they’re considering legalising it
As prices halve on ‘highest quality we’ve ever seen’, Bern says ‘war on drugs has failed’ and looks at it being sold for recreational use
James Crisp, Europe Editor 21 December 2023 • 2:53pm
Switzerland has one of the highest levels of cocaine use in Europe
Switzerland’s capital is considering legalising cocaine after admitting the “war on drugs has failed”.
Bern is weighing up a pilot scheme to allow the sale of the class A narcotic for recreational use – a radical approach which is thought to be a worldwide first.
Switzerland has one of the highest levels of cocaine use in Europe, according to the levels of illicit drugs and their metabolites measured in waste water, with Zurich, Basel and Geneva all featuring in the top 10 cities in Europe.
Prices of the drug have halved in the country in the last five years, according to Addiction Switzerland, and usage is rising. Some politicians and experts have criticised complete bans as an ineffective means of addressing the crisis.
“We have a lot of cocaine in Switzerland right now, at the cheapest prices and the highest quality we have ever seen,” said Frank Zobel, deputy director at Addiction Switzerland.
“You can get a dose of cocaine for about 10 francs these days, not much more than the price for a beer.”
Cocaine prices have fallen because the market is flooded with large amounts of the drug.
In 2022, more than 160 tons of cocaine were confiscated in Antwerp and Rotterdam alone, and much more got into Europe undetected.
While prices have dropped, purity has increased. In Switzerland, 70 to 80 per cent of the substances sold are now pure cocaine.
‘Legalisation can do better than repression’
Many European countries, including Spain, Italy and Portugal, no longer impose prison sentences for possession of cocaine, which is highly addictive, but nowhere has gone so far as to legalise it.
The plan will require existing national law banning recreational use of the drug to be changed, but Bern’s parliament supports the scheme, which would follow trials now under way to permit the legal sale of cannabis.
“The war on drugs has failed, and we have to look at new ideas,” said Eva Chen, a member of the Bern council from the Alternative Left Party, which co-sponsored the proposal. “Control and legalisation can do better than mere repression.”
She said it was too early to say how the scientifically supervised pilot scheme would develop, including where the drug would be sold or how it would be sourced.
The sale of cocaine could be based on the model for selling cannabis but with stricter rules.
Any legislation would be accompanied by quality controls and information campaigns, Ms Chen added, with the aim being to curtail a currently lucrative criminal market.
Bern’s education, social affairs and sports directorate is preparing a report on the possible cocaine trial, although this does not mean it will definitely take place.
There will be many political hurdles for the proposal to clear before it can be implemented.
Concern about potential dangers
Bern’s parliament leans towards the Left but the government of the canton of Bern, one of 26 member states of the Swiss confederation, tacks to the Right and may yet be able to block the required change in national law.
Still, the decision to go ahead could come in a matter of years, or earlier if the current cannabis schemes - where the drug is on sale at pharmacies - show successful results.
But opponents of the plan have voiced concern about the potential dangers.
“Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,” said Boris Quednow, group leader of the University of Zurich’s Centre for Psychiatric Research.
He said its risks were in a completely different league to alcohol or cannabis, citing links to heart damage, strokes, depression and anxiety.
“Cocaine can be life-threatening for both first-time and long-term users. The consequences of an overdose, but also individual intolerance to even the smallest amounts, can lead to death,” the Bern government said
“Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,”
Isn't sugar also strongly addictive, and very damaging to the body? Yet it's marketed like there's no tomorrow, and obesity doesn't grow at an alarming rate?
I guess it all depends on your definition. If you take only one gram of sugar per day, you probably have a very weird diet (keto?). Even a slice of bread will get you above that. On the other hand, a gram of cocaine per day…
I'm for legalizing all drugs but some drugs like cocaine should come with meeting with a therapist to see if you are doing the right thing for what ails you.
Not all drugs are medicinal and this is legalization for recreational use. It's okay to enjoy a drug recreationally.
It is important to deal with any public health problems that arise from potentially more people being exposed to a highly addictive substance. But it's quite clear this point that prohibition doesn't work, so it's much better to devote resources towards helping those with addictions.
I think a careful balance needs to be found somehow.
Speaking only from my own experience: I have never touched C, and that is undoubtedly because of its legal status...while I smoked for more than half my life, undoubtedly because of the tobacco industry's highly effective influence through the 20th Century.
I remember when cigarette brands were ubiquitous at sports events and media. Race cars, movie stars, sport stars, soldiers...pubs, clubs, planes, trains and automobiles. It was everywhere - killing people in horrificly slow and painful ways, making everything and everyone stink, staining our hands, clothes, walls, teeth and facial hair, littering our town centres and countrysides alike. And this was all happening with our eyes wide open - it wasn't ignorance. It's only through decades of government intervention through health campaigns, law changes and huge taxation that the tobacco industry's grip finally weakened enough for us all to realise the horror we had walked into with our eyes open. Slowly, some parts of the world have managed to walk it back and smoking is now in the minority, but you only have to look at vaping to see how ready corporate greed is to take advantage of our influential children.
I'm not saying the above to scare people into thinking legalising cocaine would be the same - I am just highlighting what happens when the corporate world is allowed to act with impunity. I don't think it'd be long before cocaine was back in coca cola.
On the other hand, "the war on drugs" seems to do more harm than good.
So can we trust governments to properly litigate and control legal and responsible distribution? I don't know the answer, and I have no solutions...but the stakes are high - and so while I hope for change, I am also wary of it.
Swiss guys, sitting on piles of cash and cocaine: "man, I don't get it: everyone has cocaine, lambos and other stuff, what the fuss is about? Let's just legalize all the shit, everyone has it anyway!"
"real coke" is just as bad as amphetamines. They're both hardcore stimulants that can cause huge psychological addictions due to the huge amount of dopamine that they release.
Uhh. Cocaine is demonstrably more dangerous than amphetamines or opiates. Cocaine is cardiotoxic at any amount, and the damage is cumulative. Neither of the other two do that.
Half of the US is on rx amps daily, and they aren't dying if heart attacks left and right.