“In Switzerland, drugs are stronger and cheaper than ever”

Since the end of Covid’s pandemic, the drug scene has appeared to progress in French -speaking Switzerland. What’s going on? We take stock with an expert.

In recent years, each summer, drug addicts have come out in the streets and French -speaking places. In Lausanne, the work around the Place de la Riponne made them move elsewhere in the city. But they remain visible, like this selfie taken on the fly by one of our readers, this summer.

Geneva and Yverdon-les-Bains are not to be outdone. Has Switzerland turned into an open drug scene? Why doesn’t the situation seem to improve? We discuss it with Frank Zobel, deputy director of Swiss addiction.

Consumers are injecting products in the street. What’s going on in French-speaking Switzerland at the moment?
This phenomenon increases each year, from May: consumers become more visible. They go out because of hot and are also more mobile during the summer. The situation changes from one city to another.

In Vevey, there are many sellers around the station, but consumption is rather in a private setting. The rest of Switzerland is not spared, whether in Zurich, Basel, Lucerne or Saint-Gall. But also in some smaller cities as a core, or Brugg, in Argovie, which indicates that the phenomenon tends to spread. This situation has been going on for a few years now, but it has become particularly visible since the summer of 2023.

At that point?
Yes. You have to take a step back to better understand this phenomenon, which is extremely important. In less than ten years, cocaine production in South America has increased spectacularly.

We realized it in Europe through the seizures in the ports, where it is sent in secret in commercial containers. The quantity of cocaine seized in Europe, mainly in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam, was more than 400 tonnes in 2023, against around 80 in 2016.

What is the consequence for consumers in Switzerland and Europe?
A complete market transformation. The abundance of cocaine stocks has led to a drop in its price. It is also less and less cut. This reflects significant competition to sell it. Today, the purity of cocaine sold is around 70 to 80% on average. It was still half less than ten years ago. The price of a dose was also divided by two, from around twenty to ten francs.

This phenomenon is also observed in many European countries. The types and number of points of sale have also multiplied: you can buy cocaine in the street, but also order it on social networks or on the Darknet.

Are you worried?
Yes. The hyper-daponibility of cocaine is a major and historic change, which explains that some people have lost control of their drug use. Cocaine has relatively short effects and some people take more than ten times a day. They are completely exhausted because they do not sleep and no longer eat.

The impression that our readers have is therefore not just an impression …
No. We realized the situation – including you, the media – during the summer of 2023, when we started talking about Crack consumption (smoking cocaine), that incivility in public space increased and that hospitalizations and processing requests have seen a sharp increase. This is the moment when the pieces of the puzzle have assembled

Large quantities were already coming from South America. While this market was evolving, public attention was mainly focused on the Cavid pandemic. On this subject, consumption did not decrease during this period, while measures to close the borders and recreational places were in force, proof that cocaine was circulating despite everything and that stocks existed.

Put this to an increasing economic precariousness, increasing mental health problems and a complicated migratory situation in Europe – and the cocktail was ready.

What is the importance of migratory phenomena in the equation?
Migrant populations are at risk for both consumption and deal. Some migrants are among the marginalized populations and are at risk of becoming consumers: they have no work and area through Europe-one day in Switzerland, another in Germany, the Netherlands, etc. They can quickly be in contact with the drug.

If they are arrested by the police, they are often quickly replaced. Some run into a neighboring country and those with Schengen stay permissions cannot be easily put to the door. In addition, prisons are full in many French -speaking cantons.

What can we face with this scourge?
Detches of course take place, but traffickers have such a quantity of stocks that they can apparently absorb these losses. Globalization from the top – economic exchanges – and from the bottom – the economic migration of people from Africa, Latin America and Asia – are two engines of this traffic. In Switzerland, each city is trying to find a solution.

Geneva, for example, now sends medical teams on the street because some consumers are unable to use existing services. Other cities offer “low threshold” accommodation, easily accessible, at low cost and without too many constraints, to reduce consumption in public space.

How to treat drug addictions?
What is complicated with cocaine and crack is that there is no substitute product, such as methadone with opiates.

In Switzerland, we learned the teachings of Platzspitz, in Zurich, in the 1990s. At the time, the political line was: “People must be abstinent, point.” But in fact, it didn’t work and many people died. We have developed the policy of the four pillars – prevention, risk reduction, therapy and repression -, which is pragmatic, local and concrete. There are sometimes tensions between the interlocutors, but this strategy remains the right one.

What are the solutions at the political level?
It’s complicated. Some politicians can give the impression of being helpless, but no one has a magic formula. Even cities like Zurich, which have a lot of means and experience in the field, are sometimes in difficulty in the face of the evolution of the situation. On the other hand, we have elected officials who take strong postures against drugs.

Wouldn’t we have an interest in taking firm measures in a situation like this?
If stopping the drug traffickers in punch operations and telling people to stop drugs allowed to reverse the situation, we know it. What should not be done, it is observed for example in France, where the deterioration of the situation is visible. Politicians have a very dogmatic posture there, “no compromise with drugs” and yet the situation is problematic. We do not have two consumption rooms in France against fifteen in Switzerland, when it is not just a place where we “allow people to take drugs”, but also to take care of them and to follow the situation.

What about fentanyl, this drug that wreaked havoc in the United States and frightens in Europe?
There is no indication so far of structured criminal networks and assets of distribution of fentanyl, or other opioids of synthesis, in Switzerland. I’m waiting to see these drugs disembark for almost ten years, and almost nothing or almost. Epiphenomena exist and could increase in the coming years. We have small serious and isolated, localized hospital peaks and in the same period. Rather, these are people who command on the Darkweb. It could change but it is really not sure.

Don’t traffickers are not interested in it?
In terms of business modelthis is probably a bad choice.

In addition, we would immediately draw the attention of the police. In the United States, the catastrophic situation is the result of a very liberal policy: the pharmaceutical industry began to sell opioid legally and to advertise for, which made millions of dependent Americans. Mexican cartels took over with heroin, then with synthetic opioids like fentanyl, much easier to produce. In Europe, we had neither the first step nor the others.

No fentanyl with us, then?
Fortunately, because it’s a drug killing.