Basel will experiment with legal weed

Switzerland’s first local ‘weed experiment’ will begin in Basel on 15 September for a maximum of 370 participants over the age of 18. The participants will be able to buy weed that is equal in price to the black market.

370 participants in Basel will be able to buy four types of weed and two types of hashish between 8 and 12 euros

Six different products but, four types of cannabis buds and two types of hashish, will be sold in nine pharmacies selected by the authorities, the cantonal Health minister Lukas Engelberger said last Thursday.

The prices that the pharmacies use will be around the prices on the black market for products with a THC content. A gram will therefore cost between CHF8 (8.31 euros) and CHF12 (12.47 euros). It should be noted that almost everything in Switzerland is more expensive than in the Netherlands.

The Federal Office of Health approved the experiment in April. It will be part of a project of the University of Basel, its psychiatric clinics and the cantonal health department.

It aims to help evaluate the effects of new regulations on the recreational use of cannabis and ultimately counteract its spread on the black market.

In September last year, the federal government announced that it wants to relax the rules on medicinal cannabis and lift the ban. Even better news came in October last year, when the Social Security and Health Committee of the Council of States ordered that Switzerland should legalize cannabis. Earlier, the Public Health Commission of the National Council in Switzerland already agreed. The government now has to make a bill, but has decided to experiment first.