Skip to main content

Europe: Battle of the Swiss Drug Referenda

Submitted by Phillip Smith on (Issue #543)

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.

Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.

Comments

Giordano (not verified)

Maybe you’ve heard of Club Med in Gstaad? In the U.S. we have Club Drug Warrior—a fictitious place for people who live in a fiction.

Sat, 07/19/2008 - 12:29am Permalink

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.