Europe: Battle of the Swiss Drug Referenda

Swiss voters will have a clear choice on their drug policy preferences as they head to the polls on November 30. They can put their seal of approval on reforms approved by parliament in March, or they can vote for an abstinence-promoting referendum submitted by rightist parties that last week announced they had gathered the 50,000 signatures necessary to put their proposal on the ballot.

In March, the parliament backed a proposal that would decriminalize the use and possession of small amounts of drugs. The proposal would also permit the use of psychoactive drugs, including heroin, for scientific or therapeutic purposes.

That's too much for the uber-conservative Federal Democratic Union and Swiss People's Party, who filed the referendum challenging the proposal. The proposed law is too liberal, they said. Opposition from the People's Party has helped block drug reforms before in Switzerland. Later this year, we will see if the Swiss still find them persuasive.