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Buying cocaine legally, safely and easily – the city of Bern can imagine making such an attempt. Bern is now an ideal test location and should bring other cities on board. But experts are skeptical.
According to the latest report by Sucht Schweiz, record amounts of cocaine are being seized around the world – and in Switzerland the number of people seeking treatment for cocaine problems is increasing. The Alternative Left introduced a pilot for the controlled sale of cocaine in Bern and the city parliament said yes.
“A repressive drug policy is currently being pursued. This drives trade and consumption underground,” says Eva Chen, City Councilor Bern/AL. “As a result, you have no control – and no possibility for preventive measures.”
Support from the Zurich FDP
Bern is not alone in this, but receives support from the FDP in Zurich. Individual representatives of the city and cantonal party had made similar initiatives in 2021, without success. But they don’t want to give up.
“I could certainly imagine a pilot project in our city. The FDP has issued a position paper on this. That would certainly be a good attempt to gain experience,” says Përparim Avdili, President of the City of Zurich FDP.
The City of Zurich FDP is not alone in this: The position paper of the Basel FDP also speaks clearly about dealing with hard drugs: “Based on the freedom of people to harm themselves, drugs should not be banned, but legalized, controlled and taxed in order to to remove the basis of the black market that brings suffering.»
The liberalization of hard drugs is no longer a left-green concern, but a liberal one, according to Zurich FDP representatives: “New generations of FDP boys are coming, who have a completely different attitude towards drugs, which are far away from before Platzspitz and no longer know it that way, »says FDP cantonal councilor Angie Romero.
The sale presents the project with challenges
Boris Quednow, senior psychologist/research coordinator at the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine at Zurich University Hospital, says Switzerland has gotten the drugs scene under control through medical treatments. These “highly innovative” treatments would have found imitators worldwide – and solved the social problem that existed with consumption. “But it is fundamentally different whether I treat a medical problem than introducing a controlled sale for healthy people for hedonistic use.”
The latter could have serious consequences – especially from a medical point of view. According to Quednow, the cardiovascular system in particular is damaged, and cognitive side effects, such as the ability to concentrate, can also occur. “Memory problems already arise with recreational consumption, and not only with addictive consumption,” says the expert. In the end, it is still a substance that means you never have enough. “That’s what makes cocaine so special and different from opiates or alcohol or cannabis.”
Legend:
Drug scene, Letten Zurich, 1994: In the 1980s and 1990s, it symbolized the drug problem in Switzerland at the time.
KEYSTONE/Martin Ruetschi
The expert is not a fan of controlled cocaine sales – and also has reservations about a pilot project. This could not clarify an aspect that is also important to him: whether the black market for cocaine is actually dried up by legal sale.