Legal situation of the hemp plant in Switzerland

 The natural Swiss hemp question, as a result of the 1999 season, is of actuality. Indeed, if hemp was a narcotic drug then its consumption without medical prescription, would be forbidden and consumers punished. But read the following :

 In all countries of the industrial world and all countries of the United Nations, the hemp plant (scientific name : cannabis sativa, from "sativa" Latin which means seeds) has been forbidden in an absolute manner. In all these countries, the cultivation as well as the direct consumption of hemp (without any alteration of the plant) is forbidden - but not in Switzerland. The Swiss law (LFStup) considers hemp as a narcotic drug only if one extracts narcotic substances from it. (art. 8 LFStup). The legal definition of the hemp word is as follows: the fruit or flower bearing extremities of the hemp plant. "Hemp" under Swiss law (here the only one which is of interest to us) does not signify as it does in other countries - the entire plant, but only the extremities of the mentioned plant. These extremities do not fall under Swiss law on the condition that no "narcotic" substance is to be extracted from the plant (resine, extracts, tinctures).

 The word "narcotic" or stupefacient is a medical definition, which holds all substances that induce sleep (from Latin: "stupefacere" = to put to sleep). The Greek synonym of the Latin word "stupefacient" is narcotic (from narcos = sleep).

 The word "narcotic" used by the LFStup includes mandatorilly the characeristic to make one dependent (see the definition in art. 1 LFStup), or that which brings about drug addiction.

 Only narcotics elaborated from alcaloid plants can bring about drug addiction. These are narcotics for which the name ends in "in" : cocaine, diacetylmorphine (heroin), morphine, caffein, nicotine, to speak only of the most known ones. (Nota bene : heroin addicts are all, at first, addicted to nicotine, before they move on to the superior "in", that being heroin).

Hemp products holding more than 7 to 8% THC have, medically speaking, the effect of putting one to sleep up to the point that concentrated hemp products are recognized sleeping " pills " by the medical profession since always. Hemp products are then - under the condition to go above 7 to 8% THC - narcotics for the medical profession; however, they are not narcotics the sense of the LFStup, art. 1, since in this law, narcotics are defined as substances bringing about addiction. However, hemp is not an alcaloid plant, therefore it is impossible to extract narcotics from hemp plants and become addicted (because of how it is defined in the LFStup) - It follows that having inserted in the LFStup law that witholds only narcotics bringing about addiction hemp products which do not addict people is an abuse of authority and a flagrant violation of the law. This introduction is due to the North American "milieu" of the pharmaceutical industry thus wanting to put away a competitive product, which is hemp and its derived products which are cheap and without unwanted side effects.

Actually, the battle against hemp is principally directed by North American cigarette companies, since smoking hemp (or consuming it in any other manner) is a way to stop smoking nicotine, or else to smoke fewer cigarettes. With this in mind, hemp and its derived products are not narcotics as defined in the Swiss Law LFStup. The flowers of natural Swiss hemp have less that 7% THC and are therefore not to be considered narcotics !!! Hemp below 7 to 8% THC has a well-being tonic action and helps diminish and even stop addiction of alcohol and nicotine.

In Switzerland, the consumption of the plant itself is neither controlled nor forbidden - this is what is stated by the Swiss law LFStup. People who buy hemp flowers accept not to produce any narcotic on the basis that according to Swiss law, only Doctors and Pharmacists have the right as health professionals, to produce narcotic drugs (addictive or not).

Alcaloid: any nitrogenous and basic organic compound extracted from certain plants (generic name)