You may have seen that legal cannabis is now on sale in Switzerland. As several expat friends asked me how it comes, I thought that the reply could be of general interest.

There are various kinds of cannabis. Some of them are used for industrial purposes (they are usually called “hemp”, “chanvre” in French). They are used for making ropes, paper (including banknotes paper), animal bedding, insulation material… What’s the difference between this hemp and the cannabis which is used as a psychoactive drug? It has a low content of THC, the substance that makes one high. In most countries, it is thus permitted to cultivate hemp with less than 0,2 or 0,3% content of THC. Switzerland is more liberal: it allows 1%.

But THC is not the only active substance in cannabis. There is another one, the CBD, that is thought to make you feel relaxed and to be an anxiolytic. Smart guys had thus the idea of producing cannabis with a low content of THC (thus being legal and not psychoactive) and a high content of CBD (thus being potentially relaxing and anxiolytic). It has the look, the color, the odor, and the taste of psychoactive cannabis. But since the law only focuses on THC, nothing prevents it to be legally sold. The only restriction: the sellers can not mention its assumed properties, as they are deemed to be not soundly scientifically proven.

That’s it folks!