City of Bern: Media Info

At the beginning of November 2014, a media release was published on the occasion of the 5th Addiction Forum of the city of Bern. Discussions were also held there about a pilot trial for the distribution of cannabis. The municipal council (the government of the city of Bern) set up a working group under the leadership of municipal councilor Franziska Teuscher to write a concept for the pilot project.

The aim is to find answers to the following questions:

What regulatory models exist and what experiences are available in other cities or countries? What is the legal basis for the different models? Who is the target group and how high should the number of participants be? Who operates the sales or distribution point and how is it designed? What products are sold and how and by whom are they produced? How can resale be prevented? How should prevention and protection of minors be implemented? Costs should also be clarified, as should cooperation with other cities, politics and the public. The tone of the media release, the concrete questions and also the composition of the working group indicate that the city of Bern really wants to carry out a detailed clarification of such a trial operation. From Geneva, on the other hand, we have heard nothing more recently.

The SVP, meanwhile, is already fearing a major breach of the dam in drug policy: in the cantonal parliament of Bern, it pushed a motion to ban such efforts even before any experimental operation had been opened or even really considered. The vote was 74 to 68 in favor of the proposal. The fronts were the same as before: SVP, EVP, EDU and FDP were in favor of the proposal and SP, Greens, BDP and Green Liberals were against it.

The city of Bern continues anyway, it would be responsible anyway the federation, not the canton. The concept should be developed by perhaps the end of 2015. We think such clarifications are good, but we have to point it out: The repressive organs report more people for cannabis every year, no matter what concepts are written. In Zurich, the police have already raided over 100 indoor facilities before the end of 2014…. There is no insight at all among the repression organs.

By comparison, in the U.S., Oregon, Alaska and Washington D.C. clearly approved legalization initiatives in early November. They're really just getting started now.