For me the most impactful sentence here is the acknowledgement that the war on drugs failed. This is obvious to a lot of us, but to politicians to say this, could mean they are actually not tangled up with the drug lords. Cheers for Switzerland, hope the legal marijuana trials triumph with positive outcomes.
The war on drugs was widely successful when you start considering that it was never meant to combat drugs. It was a political maneuver to divide the populace.
Exactly, it’s not the war on drugs, it’s the war on blacks and the poor.
I thought the War on Drugs was a distinctly American thing, ya know, starting a war that’s doomed to fail.
Nope, here in Brazil they love to copycat the US where it fails the most, like education, healthcare, prison system and war on drugs. Sadly the whole south america follows this path at some degree.
People. Cocaine is not maryjanes. You can get addicted badly to cocaine. There’s tons of neurological effects that will cause you to not function proplerly in society. By all means smoke your ganja but don’t equate hard drugs with it.
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People also confuse legalisation with general availability. The two are not synonymous.
I have a completely different problem with cocaine. Namely that it is extremely exploitive to the people who grow the coca. It takes about two acres of coca plants to produce just one kilo of cocaine. Obviously, that means the people who farm it are paid virtually nothing and live on starvation wages. If it’s really cheap in Switzerland, that makes it worse.
On top of that, coca plantations are responsible for huge amounts of deforestation in an area of the world that should not be deforested.
However- hundreds of thousands of people are working in coca plantations and own small coca farms and if this all ended, they wouldn’t even have the meagre wages they make from coca farming. So I don’t know what the solution here is.
wouldn’t legalizing it also solve that issue? It could be grown legally - much like legal marijuana.
Lots of highly addicting stuff is legal, I don’t care if people do cocaine. Make it legal and safely accessible so drug addicts can participate in society and not have to fund cartels
Many mistakes are available at highly competitive prices.
The same things can be said about maryjanes as well. And about alcohol. With cocaine it is just even more likely.
Yeah it’s always the same thing. “Guys, you can smoke cigarettes, but weed will fry your brains and leave you completely useless to society. Legalizing would be a disaster”.
Not even close
Yes, light and legal drugs are not okay as well. They too may cause severe health (including mental health) issues, as well as addiction.
THC, alcohol, nicotine and even caffeine cause significant and measurable harm, and you’ll be much better off by restricting them long-term, unless you have medical indications to consume them.
If you need any of them to relax or to have a good party or to stay productive, remember it is NOT sustainable and actively harmful and something has to be done about the way you organize your life. You can’t go on like this forever, it will get you eventually
The question is whether or not a legal-in-some-circumstances is more effective at reducing social damage than keeping it illegal.
What consenting adults do with their body is their own business.
Bodily autonomy is an all or nothing thing. Whether you’re talking about abortion, gender affirming surgery, taking a dick in the ass and in the mouth at the same time, or shooting meth into your dick. It’s all the same thing.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but this brings up the next round of tough questions:
If your bodily autonomy is absolute, fine, but what happens when your choices and their impact start to spill beyond your own personal life?
If you want to go wild with hard drugs, okay fine, whatever. But when you need medical attention because of that decision, should insurance providers or the state be obligated to spend in order to treat you?
When your addiction costs you your job and support network, should the collective taxpayer have to subsidize your poor life choices?
I don’t mind the notion that individuals should have final say over what happens to their bodies, but that sort of assumption of responsibility, at some point, cuts both ways…and the flip side of some of these decisions would suggest that the individual should bear all consequences of their decisions…which seems unlikely in practice. We’re not going to see an addict rushed to an ER and the hospital toss them out into the street saying, “This was your decision! Sorry!”
And the mitigation measures seem equally unlikely to fly with the “strict bodily autonomy” crowd: increased insurance premiums or exception clauses in policies in order to keep expenses reined in for the rest of the policy holders/taxpayers who aren’t using their strict autonomy in a way that adversely affects others.
While it’s fine to conceptually discuss these decisions in a vacuum where it only affects the individual, in real life application, these decisions have impacts outside the individual in almost every case, which fundamentally shift the discussion.
I struggle with this line of thinking because there are so many legal things people can do to increase their probability of being a burden in the national healthcare system. Alcohol, junk food, working too much, gambling too maybe. I can’t wrap my head around a system that would be “fair” and not fall into a black mirror episode dystopian “good citizen” points system. I’d rather just pay more than my fair share, knowingly subsidise people who make bad choices, and not live in the dystopian society.
Theres a separate argument about the drugs increasing crime probability that I also don’t buy entirely. Those crimes are crimes already, so making these other “precrimes” also crimes seems a bit weird - not to mention wildly ineffective at reducing harm or use of the substances in question. I’m sure we can identify books and films that increase future criminal probability too.
Bodily autonomy does hold some water for me as an argument, but for me it’s more about finding a way to minimise societal harm while maximally hurting the businesses profiting from these dark economies we have created through prohibition. But this brings up another round of tough questions: do we do this for all substances? Forever? Is this really the path of least societal harm? (I honestly don’t know)
Then you charge people with the crimes they’ve committed. You hold people accountable for the choices they’ve made. It’s quite simple, in my opinion.
There are plenty of “hard drugs” you can do with very little damage to your body. Cocaine is not one of them. In fact, it’s one of the worst things you can do for your heart.
Nobody is saying that people should start taking cocaine. Just that you shouldn’t get your life ruined by having it / using it.
Also, knowing that what your getting isn’t mixed with mdma, amphetamines, ketamine and being able to properly monitor your dosage instead of guesstimating the purity and doing brain arithmetic is very helpful.
There’s a major difference in having the person who sells it to you wanting you to quit vs wanting you to consume more.
Ironically, cocaine would be safer if it were cut with those 3 drugs
You can get addicted to and fuck up your life with bud too my friend. It’s harder but it’s possible. Source, me.
Also, as the others said. Coke being illegal does nothing to stop its prevalence so what’s the point.
People should note that cocaine is the widest illegal drug used in Switzerland. Cannabis is second.
Is it weird that this somehow makes sense with all the banking?
Why is it that the finance industry and cocaine seem to go together so often?
High stress
Need a lot of productivity
Cocaine is good for both of those
Holy shit.
Well there’s your problem, it’s a lot easier to measure out if you do it by weight instead.
I’ve had friends that were cocaine addicts and some that really hit the bottom. This seems insane to me, this isn’t a fun and easy drug like weed imo. I’ve always lumped coke with meth and heroin.
Its harm potential is somewhere in between. To put it in perspective, alcohol is worse than heroin. And like alcohol addicts, your friends should be able to get a clean and safe source to reduce damage, and the help they need without any fear of persecution.
You can’t criminalize problems away. It evidently didn’t help your friends.
I don’t think alcohol is worse than heroin by any means, although the harm that alcohol does is definitely underestimated.
I’d also like to say that I don’t necessarily think the use should be criminalized. Putting addicts in jail solves nothing and the justice system should be concentrating on the ones that sell it. Making it legal will just make more addicts, and won’t help the ones that currently are.
It’s also harder to stop abusing something if it’s sold in every city legally. Dealers go to jail and their numbers can be deleted.
Decriminalization but making the sale highly illegal while offering free rehab to the ones that need it is the way forward imo.
My friend’s brother just died of heroin overdose a few weeks ago and I just couldn’t help but feel for him. How many dark alleys did he have to go to to get his high? How many sketchy people were involved? Did he have access to clean needles? He overdosed alone, and likely felt subhuman due to being relegated to the fringes of society just to get his high.
Legalization would not have kept him from getting high, but it certainly would have enabled him access to clean drugs from a safe place, clean needles, and possibly made him viewed as someone who enjoyed getting high and not a piece of shit addict. He had a problem and it being illegal only made it worse for him.
Legalize it all. He was an adult, it’s his body. He can do what he wants with it, it’s nobody’s place to tell anyone what you can or cannot consume. He loved getting high on heroin and I don’t see a problem with that.
He was an adult, it’s his body
This seems to be widely questioned view as of lately 😞
I wish it was legal in unrefined quantities. I don’t want a crazy addition, but maybe I’d like a tea with some extra kick now and then.
I don’t think that would be a good idea. We want it to be refined so it’s high purity and safe (or as safe as it can be).
If anything I would suggest the opposite – make it legal when refined, and have a government agency certify they meet a certain quality. You’d want to encourage people to take the refined version, which has known composition and materials. The unrefined street product would be illegal, but the only “punishment” would be confiscation. No jail time, except perhaps for manufacturers who are knowingly getting people sick with their product.
See its traditional use in leaf form. It’s way less potent and it’s a lot easier to tell if something is wrong with a leaf than if someone cut something into a powder post inspection.
Potency with coke is a real problem. It’s TOO good. And we get it refined in large part because of our silly policing policies around it. It’s silly to be policing a leaf the way we do when there’s coffee beans lining our shelves.
I agree with you. I know a lot of people who are cocaine addicts and their addiction makes them all incredibly unreliable. They stay up partying until 7am then crash for 12 hours the day of a big event. I’ve also known people who died due to tainted cocaine. It’s not a safe drug by any means. I’m all for decriminalization and treating it like a health issue, but it should not be taken lightly.
Swiss cocaine so cheap and widely used they’re considering legalising it
As prices halve on ‘highest quality we’ve ever seen’, Bern says ‘war on drugs has failed’ and looks at it being sold for recreational use James Crisp, Europe Editor 21 December 2023 • 2:53pm Switzerland has one of the highest levels of cocaine use in Europe
Switzerland’s capital is considering legalising cocaine after admitting the “war on drugs has failed”.
Bern is weighing up a pilot scheme to allow the sale of the class A narcotic for recreational use – a radical approach which is thought to be a worldwide first.
Switzerland has one of the highest levels of cocaine use in Europe, according to the levels of illicit drugs and their metabolites measured in waste water, with Zurich, Basel and Geneva all featuring in the top 10 cities in Europe.
Prices of the drug have halved in the country in the last five years, according to Addiction Switzerland, and usage is rising. Some politicians and experts have criticised complete bans as an ineffective means of addressing the crisis.
“We have a lot of cocaine in Switzerland right now, at the cheapest prices and the highest quality we have ever seen,” said Frank Zobel, deputy director at Addiction Switzerland.
“You can get a dose of cocaine for about 10 francs these days, not much more than the price for a beer.”
Cocaine prices have fallen because the market is flooded with large amounts of the drug.
In 2022, more than 160 tons of cocaine were confiscated in Antwerp and Rotterdam alone, and much more got into Europe undetected.
While prices have dropped, purity has increased. In Switzerland, 70 to 80 per cent of the substances sold are now pure cocaine. ‘Legalisation can do better than repression’
Many European countries, including Spain, Italy and Portugal, no longer impose prison sentences for possession of cocaine, which is highly addictive, but nowhere has gone so far as to legalise it.
The plan will require existing national law banning recreational use of the drug to be changed, but Bern’s parliament supports the scheme, which would follow trials now under way to permit the legal sale of cannabis.
“The war on drugs has failed, and we have to look at new ideas,” said Eva Chen, a member of the Bern council from the Alternative Left Party, which co-sponsored the proposal. “Control and legalisation can do better than mere repression.”
She said it was too early to say how the scientifically supervised pilot scheme would develop, including where the drug would be sold or how it would be sourced.
The sale of cocaine could be based on the model for selling cannabis but with stricter rules.
Any legislation would be accompanied by quality controls and information campaigns, Ms Chen added, with the aim being to curtail a currently lucrative criminal market.
Bern’s education, social affairs and sports directorate is preparing a report on the possible cocaine trial, although this does not mean it will definitely take place.
There will be many political hurdles for the proposal to clear before it can be implemented. Concern about potential dangers
Bern’s parliament leans towards the Left but the government of the canton of Bern, one of 26 member states of the Swiss confederation, tacks to the Right and may yet be able to block the required change in national law.
Still, the decision to go ahead could come in a matter of years, or earlier if the current cannabis schemes - where the drug is on sale at pharmacies - show successful results.
But opponents of the plan have voiced concern about the potential dangers.
“Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,” said Boris Quednow, group leader of the University of Zurich’s Centre for Psychiatric Research.
He said its risks were in a completely different league to alcohol or cannabis, citing links to heart damage, strokes, depression and anxiety.
“Cocaine can be life-threatening for both first-time and long-term users. The consequences of an overdose, but also individual intolerance to even the smallest amounts, can lead to death,” the Bern government said
Wow, that’s so disgusting, 10 francs? Man, where though? Where did he get it for 10 francs though??
“Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,”
Isn’t sugar also strongly addictive, and very damaging to the body? Yet it’s marketed like there’s no tomorrow, and obesity doesn’t grow at an alarming rate?
I guess it all depends on your definition. If you take only one gram of sugar per day, you probably have a very weird diet (keto?). Even a slice of bread will get you above that. On the other hand, a gram of cocaine per day…
So they have a different dosage?
Like LSD is only on micrograms?
That’s not the issue. I can get a kilo of sugar for almost nothing.
One gram of cocaine a day is an enormous amount. It’s like one gram of caffeine… You can go way higher, but that’s a ton
On the other hand, half a bag of cocq leaf? Half a box of coca tea? People have worse effects and addiction to caffeine
Here’s the thing about cocaine… It’s very addictive, but the withdrawal is minimal. People with crazy cocaine habits can spend 20k a week on it, and lose their life savings. And, when they’re out of money, they can just stop. More likely than not, they do just stop
You can’t buy pure caffeine normally… It’s quite dangerous, you can buy enough pills or energy drinks to kill yourself, but it’s not easy to take a lethal dose. If you could buy pure powder, you could.
We should treat coke the same way - we can sell it in products, but we shouldn’t sell the pure form. Cocaine is safer… And that means you can take insane amounts of it
Coca is a smoother, more effective, less addictive simulant than caffeine… Cocaine is not a good idea, and shouldn’t be sold directly. Coca products are great, but concentration, informed consent, and age need to be taken into account
so they are good on snow this year
At least someone is going to have a white Christmas
Swiss Sugar by Toblerone when?
I’m for legalizing all drugs but some drugs like cocaine should come with meeting with a therapist to see if you are doing the right thing for what ails you.
Not all drugs are medicinal and this is legalization for recreational use. It’s okay to enjoy a drug recreationally.
It is important to deal with any public health problems that arise from potentially more people being exposed to a highly addictive substance. But it’s quite clear this point that prohibition doesn’t work, so it’s much better to devote resources towards helping those with addictions.
Yes and someone with your “file” should know what they’re dealing with.
You can legalize even drugs such as but you generally need responsible people for that or not care about many deaths and addiction problems…
However, there should not be high punishment for using them.
Swiss guys, sitting on piles of cash and cocaine: “man, I don’t get it: everyone has cocaine, lambos and other stuff, what the fuss is about? Let’s just legalize all the shit, everyone has it anyway!”
Wait, should I be doing cocaine!?
For me If it’s not high quality it’s the most depressing drug the day after. It’s not worth the 30 minute high.
“We have a lot of cocaine in Switzerland right now, at the cheapest prices and the highest quality we have ever seen,”
So that’s a yes?
Seriously, it’s the first time I’m hearing cocaine advertised like a New Year Overstock Blowout at your local Ford dealership.
Haha that part definitely reads like a brag and an invitation.
it’s so cheap, you’re basically losing money if you’re not doing cocaine!
Real cocaine is not nearly as harmful as the amphetamines and opiates. I wish I could still get pure coke and molly.
“real coke” is just as bad as amphetamines. They’re both hardcore stimulants that can cause huge psychological addictions due to the huge amount of dopamine that they release.
False.
Please feel free to counter this journal article with more than ‘false.’
Can you show us where it says it’s as bad as opiates and amphetamines? I couldn’t find it.
I never claimed that. You said it was false that it can cause huge addiction issues. It can.
Addict
if its false then give some proof of your claim too. i’m also somewhat curious on what you even base that on
Uhh. Cocaine is demonstrably more dangerous than amphetamines or opiates. Cocaine is cardiotoxic at any amount, and the damage is cumulative. Neither of the other two do that.
Half of the US is on rx amps daily, and they aren’t dying if heart attacks left and right.
Lol what? Did you actually just say something this fucking retarded?
I got paywalled, anyone have a bypass link?
Copied the article in another comment. Just for You, have a nice day.
Bot posted summary just now
I don’t see a bot summary comment, but @stoicferret did post the whole article content, props to them
It’s gone for me too. Weird
Get some dispensaries for weed while you’re at it pretty please
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Did you know that cocaine comes from the river Thames? It’s like sea salt.
