Zurich’s municipal parliament has voted to increase its flagship adult-use hashish pilot, Züri Can, by an extra two years to October 2028, and to supply an extra CHF 800,000 in funding, in a 101-13 vote that laid naked the fault strains in Swiss hashish politics.
After making use of to increase the ‘Züri Can: Hashish with Duty’ pilot final October, following what officers describe as encouraging early leads to lowering illicit gross sales and bettering public-health outcomes, the council held a vote on March 18, 2026.
The supplementary credit score brings the full value of the programme, carried out by the Psychiatric College Clinic of the College of Zurich, to CHF 2.76 million, with the College of Zurich contributing an extra CHF 156,000 towards extension prices.
In contrast to a few of Switzerland’s different hashish pilot programmes, that are funded by cantonal well being departments or college analysis budgets, Züri Can is straight financed by the Metropolis of Zurich, that means any extra expenditure above the unique authorised price range requires a proper vote of the Gemeinderat.
Whereas the vote was by no means in severe doubt and handed with an amazing majority, the full of life debate that preceded it highlights a number of the rising tensions round hashish liberalisation in even probably the most progressive states.
The vote triggers a 30-day objection interval earlier than the extension is formally confirmed, with closing approval additionally required from the cantonal ethics committee and the Federal Workplace of Public Well being.
Is The Metropolis Of Zurich Turning into A Vendor?
As has develop into a typical theme throughout Europe, the fiercest opposition got here from these on the populist proper. A consultant from the Swiss Individuals’s Occasion (SVP) instantly went on the assault, labelling the venture as state-sponsored drug dealing.
“What’s being bought right here as a scientific research is, in actuality, a state-organised hashish market,” he advised the council. “Is the Metropolis of Zurich successfully changing into a seller, with a emblem, an administration, and our tax cash?
“First, the venture is bought with high quality phrases, accountable, scientifically supervised, progressive. After which all of a sudden the cash is not sufficient… The state can not concurrently warn about dangers and promote hashish with out making itself look ridiculous.”
This stance was quickly countered by Pascal Lamprecht of the Social Democratic Occasion (SP), who advised the council: “Hashish will not be merely at all times and solely innocent, we see it that means too… Drug coverage must be primarily based on details, which implies management and prevention.”
Lamprecht then went on to recommend that, on the advice of operators, the research’s product vary must be expanded to incorporate edibles and vapes with a view to deter shoppers from returning to the black market.
On this be aware, the Greens’ Yves Heinz urged that the SVP’s place ‘successfully goals to push all shoppers again to the illicit market, and thereby drive insecurity in our metropolis and advance the promotion of organised crime.
He continued: “Züri Can is the scientifically and politically constructive path towards an evidence-based drug coverage the place well being safety is central.”
The sharpest change of the session got here from Moritz Bögli of the socialist Different Listing, who pointed to the SVP’s contradictory place on tobacco.
“Simply immediately, the Nationwide Council once more blocked measures to ratify the WHO tobacco settlement, with a unanimous SVP faction voting towards. Greater than 9,000 folks die from tobacco in Switzerland yearly. And people deaths are accepted due to the cash acquired from the tobacco foyer. To then stand right here on this council and say we reject this as a result of it’s dangerous to well being, that’s merely full hypocrisy.”
In a pointed retort, Stefan Urech of the SVP stated: “To recommend that we’ve got connections to the mafia or are paid by some foyer with hundreds of thousands, simply because we’re towards the state institutionalising hashish consumption, that’s merely laughable. I’d say settle down slightly and maybe take a number of the merchandise from this new venture down a bit.”
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What does the info present?
As of March 2026, 2,456 contributors are enrolled within the research, approaching the expanded cap of three,000 authorised by the Federal Workplace of Public Well being in November 2024, and the programme has now recorded roughly 106,000 authorized gross sales, equivalent to round 902kg of hashish bought by regulated channels.
These figures characterize a major step up from these cited when the extension was first proposed in October 2025, when the trial had logged round 88,000 transactions and roughly 750kg in gross sales.
Determine 2a: Gender distribution of present research contributors in %. Supply: College of Zurich
At that time, metropolis officers estimated CHF 7.5m had been diverted from the black market; with transaction volumes up by round 20% since then, that determine is more likely to have risen additional, although an up to date estimate has not but been printed.
Metropolis councillor Andreas Hauri, who heads Zurich’s Division of Well being and Atmosphere and has overseen the venture since its inception, advised the council in the course of the debate: “We discover that almost all of these at present taking part aren’t consuming extra, however much less.
“That is among the most vital findings. We discover that contributors aren’t in a worse scenario mentally or bodily, however reasonably a greater one. And that acutely aware consumption could be considerably strengthened by this pilot.”
What’s coming within the subsequent two years?
The programme operates throughout 21 distribution factors spanning three gross sales fashions, ten pharmacies, 9 hashish social golf equipment, and the town’s Drug Info Centre, every testing completely different approaches to regulated entry. The product vary can be increasing from 5 merchandise at launch to 14, protecting a broad unfold of THC and CBD profiles.
Gender and consumption patterns stay a precedence focus for the prolonged section. Males proceed to account for the big majority of contributors, reflecting wider patterns in Swiss hashish use knowledge, whereas frequent customers are disproportionately represented.
Round 1 / 4 of contributors confirmed indicators of hashish use dysfunction earlier than becoming a member of, in line with broader analysis on common customers, underscoring the programme’s public well being rationale.
Marc Brüngger, Head of Innovation and Regulation at Pure AG, the foremost provider of hashish to the nation’s pilot tasks, highlighted the near-unanimity of the vote, with opposition confined largely to SVP members, as a sign of broad political consensus.
On demographics, he described the feminine hashish client as a significant blind spot within the current analysis base, and famous that the enlargement of the product vary would assist keep participant engagement over the prolonged research interval.
For Hauri, the extension is as a lot about continuity as it’s about knowledge. “We count on that by 2027, or on the newest 2028, definitively regulated distribution could be launched on the federal stage,” he advised the council.
“We will definitely be there from the town’s facet, able to assist and implement it. We would like a hashish coverage that acknowledges actuality and locations well being safety on the very high.”
