© Jennifer Gauthier, ReutersAfter testing the controlled sale of cannabis, Bern's city parliament now wants to give residents access to harder substances
The motion, which was introduced by the Alternative Left party, passed by 43 votes to 18, Swiss news outlet SRF reported on Friday. The motion was opposed by center-right and religious councilors, but supported by leftists and some members of the center-left Social Democratic Party.
Bern voted last year to test the controlled sale of cannabis, and was granted permission by the federal government last month. Cannabis sales are expected to begin in Bern this fall, and have already started in Basel, Zurich, and Lausanne.
Noting that the federal government only agreed to allow cannabis sales after significant pressure from multiple cities, Bern Social Director Franziska Teuscher said her city would not push the government to act on cocaine, and that Thursday's vote instead sent a signal that the city would be open to the idea in future.
A similar motion was rejected by the council in 2019, with the Social Democrat majority arguing that they wanted to gain experience with legal cannabis sales before moving on to harder drugs.
Switzerland is a cocaine hotspot, with Addiction Switzerland estimating that five tons of the powder enters the country every year.
Comment: Considering the quantity of drugs in circulation, which also has to travel across vast distances, it's unlikely this all happens under the radar of the authorities; and there's evidence showing that, in some instances, they're actually in on it.
According to EU data, four Swiss cities - Zurich, Basel, Geneva - rank in the top ten in Europe for cocaine consumption. Consumption all across Europe has risen in the last decade, with residents of Bern consuming more than twice as much of the substance last year as they did in 2012.
Comment: It's notable that this comes on the heels of Canada - which is fast becoming euthanasia capital of the world - granting licenses for the manufacture of cocaine, heroin and other hard drugs, as well as Australia authorising the use of MDMA therapeutically.
Whilst there's strong reasons to conclude the West's 'war on drugs' was an outright failure, and in some instances it was wholly unjust - consider the medicinal uses of cannabis, as one example - this move to relax drug laws also comes at a time of societal disintegration and other, evidently nefarious, moves by the establishment against the general populace. And so one could reasonably ask: what's in it for the authorities? A drugged up, addicted, populace, would certainly be easier to control. In addition, the liberalisation of drug laws comes at a time when numerous governments are 'liberalising' their euthanasia policies: