take the money!

Colorado collected 2.5 billion in taxes on cannabis and cannabis products in the first two quarters of 2023, almost the same as in all of 2022. Old neighborhoods are restored, grants flowing. Illegal cultivation and distribution have halved  since Canada legalized cannabis in 2018. Here, too, the economic factor is considerable. In California, Oregon and multiple other American states, cannabis is freely available if you are 18 or older. Thailand has recently decriminalized marijuana, and in Luxembourg, possession and use of cannabis were eased in 2001. On the same list are South Africa, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Mexico, Georgia, Honduras.

And what do we do? We stick our big toe in the water with pilot trials in all major Swiss cities and throw money around like there’s no tomorrow. Apparently, it’s not good enough anymore to discreetly relax with cannabis in the comfort of our own home. They want us to get high in social clubs. Gifted by a person in the program, I tried both the marijuana and the hashish from an official Zurich dispensary. Nothing to write home about. And what if I don’t want to socialize but go to the movies or the theater? Visit someone? Write, read, draw, paint, practice music or yoga. Play a sport? Does using marijuana mean hanging out like a vegetable, barely able to vocalize? Should privacy completely disappear from our lives? I see it as my basic right to live my life away from the public eye. I have nothing against openness and publicity, but my life is still mine, and I decide when I want to be with others.

Swiss health authorities would do well to do an about-face on drug policy and declare all cannabis products legal, provided they adhere to certain standards, see the regulation of CBD as an example. Cannabis cultivation wants to be effected by professionals, improving quality.  At the same time, it must remain possible for smaller producers to generate an income. There must be a market for specialties, where the big players support smaller colleagues, for example by providing laboratory time and space, so that family businesses can also meet official standards. Letting everybody grow their own plants is also a great idea, if you allow no more than four bio plants per household, or we’ll eventually be overgrown.

Our authorities, once again, are trying to regulate life with a yardstick. But the men and women who sign up for the cannabis pilot programs are only the tail on the elephant in the room. The elephant is us countless others who use cannabis – occasionally – as a stimulant, as a substitute for alcohol or to relax after work, before sex, or to listen to music. We don’t engage in pilot projects and are not interested in consuming mediocre goods in “social clubs”.

Wouldn’t it be better for our government to put guard rails in place, i.e. to define the standards and issue the permits for growing THC-containing cannabis, and to let the market regulate itself, rather than to helicopter over every plant and every consumer? The reality is that there is a large market for cannabis and cannabis products in Switzerland. Deal with it!

Falling for fall,
Yours,
Susanne G. Seiler

P.S. You’ll find us at the gaialounge, Hochstrasse 70 (behind Basel’s SBB station, tram stop Peter Merian), every Thursday afternoon from 14 – 18 h. Welcome!

sing to me, autumn