20/12/2023
BY BEN STEVENS
Switzerland’s pioneering cannabis pilot project has developed into Europe’s most advanced and accessible adult-use framework throughout 2023.
Six pilot projects have now been approved by Switzerland’s Federal Office for Public Health (FOPH), three of which are already selling cannabis legally to Swiss citizens, and ‘dozens’ more are reportedly in the pipeline.
Without encroaching any international laws, Switzerland has managed to roll out an adult-use cannabis market that could soon outsize many medical cannabis markets across Europe, while collecting much needed data which will be crucial to the roll out of more permanent frameworks in future.
While Switzerland is undoubtedly one of 2023’s success stories, its cannabis project got off to a rocky start.
December 2022 – The ‘Weed Care’ pilot, set to be Europe’s first ever THC adult-use cannabis trial, was initially set to be launched in Switzerland’s third most populous city, Basel, on September 15.
However, just days before the regulated sale of adult-use cannabis was set to launch across selected Basel pharmacies, the city’s health department announced that the cannabis provided ‘narrowly failed to meet the quality standard’, seeing the batch incinerated and the trial put on hold.
