After Lausanne, Basel, Bern, Biel and Zurich, Geneva in turn wants to test the legal sale of cannabis for adults as part of a pilot project.
The request for authorization will be submitted shortly by the ChanGE association to the Federal Office of Public Health (OFSP). It will plan to authorize 1,000 major cannabis users to join the experiment for a period of three years.
The municipality of Vernier, which is part of the canton of Geneva, will host the cannabis shop, without further details for the moment except that it should be located in the city center, and therefore a few kilometers from the French border.
The University Hospitals (HUG) and the University of Geneva (Unige) will follow this experiment to study its repercussions on the local black market, on consumption habits and on the mental and physical health of consumers.
“Faced with a system of repression which has demonstrated its inefficiency and a strongly established black market, we must study new solutions, such as the transition to a legal and controlled market”, explained Mauro Poggia, in charge of the Department of Health and of security. For the Geneva State Councilor, taken up by 20minutes.ch, this project will also make it possible to “better calibrate the measures for the prevention of addictions and the protection of young people”.
However, the FOPH will have to give the green light to open the pilot project. In Lausanne, a file was submitted last June and “is being analyzed” according to the city. The point of sale could thus open in 2023. More than 1,500 people have registered for the Lausanne trial.
The Swiss pilot projects allow a determined number of Swiss and adult consumers, and limited to 5000 per pilot test, to buy up to 10 grams of pure THC per month at a maximum of 20% THC (i.e. 50 grams of flowers ).
At the same time, parliamentary interest in federal legalization of cannabis is beginning to take shape.
