Sergio Regazzoni, citizen activist movement to legalize marijuana in Switzerland: "Hemp is the plant that will save the world"

So emphatic and safe. Without mincing words this communicator 58 year-old Ticino, Italian canton of Switzerland –which would become a simile of the regions of Chile-, talks about the human and the divine regarding weed. PhD in Political Science and Master in Crisis Communication, degrees obtained at the University of Turin and Zurich respectively. Doesn't work, it is dedicated 24/7 to The Ticino Recreational Cannabis Association, citizen group with more than 10 thousand registered, who aspires to legalize the use of marijuana, through political actions and urban interventions. Married 4 times and with a daughter she smokes does 44 years. I went to look for him to interview him and he was waiting for me with a hash bat, a marijuana cookie and an AK-47. Well or well?

Por Franco Barbato, from Lugano-Switzerland

 

I arrived at Il Canapaio to meet Sergio a little late. Times. Il Canapaio is a store where they sell everything made from hemp: pants, handbags, t-shirts, also pipes, bongs, papers, grinders, matacolas, filters, journals, incenses, a fine, it's a club, a magnet for all Lugano flies, Ticino city where this story is inspired. And it is not easy to be flown here, Switzerland is a country where everything works well ... "like clockwork" and police control (that does not have much fault in one of the 5 countries with the best living standards in the world) makes itself felt alongside its annoying fines 100 francs who are caught smoking, something like 62 thousand Chilean pesos.

Greets me and 15 minutes offers me, mischievously, a cookie that I eat without thinking half a second. Laugh and nod. I ask him why the Swiss smoke marijuana mixed with tobacco, laugh again and don't answer me. After showing me the store, it's not his, and introduce me to some of his friends we go to a small "office", located behind the payment desk, a small piece, dark and unventilated, but messy as if a hurricane with a tsunami had been found there. On a table there are remains of grass, papers, books, ash out of a makeshift ashtray and countless distractors making it difficult for me to focus on the conversation. I start to feel the effect of the cookie. The muscles in my face relax, I want to laugh and celebrate everything Sergio says. My arms are heavy and my mouth is drier than the Atacama desert. He turns my head and my sight is lost there, where are magazines, there, on Sergio's yellow fingers, there, in the corner of the ceiling where I look for spider webs or any sign of life, as he talks and finishes rolling a perfect cone of tobacco and hash.

Unlike what I thought, marijuana was never legal in Switzerland. Was tolerated, but never legalized. In the decade of the 90 a political experiment was done in Zurich, where a plaza known as "The Needles Park" was enabled, to the city center to host heroin addicts, who received their doses from the Government. As it was expected, the matter got out of control. At one point there were more than 20 a thousand jonkies who gathered with their syringes and bruised arms to get high, multiplying countless diseases and deconstructing the rigid landscape order, architectural and social influence of Germany on which the city is based.

Sergio claims that Switzerland has always been one step ahead in the debate on drug release. At 2000 many businesses selling grass were opened, but as a consequence traffic increased in other, since they arrived, mainly, from Italy to buy weed to enter the rest of Europe. International pressure made itself feel strong and the dream was over, the political class legislated on this situation and determined to typify the consumption and bearing of marijuana, making these punishable acts. During 4 years anyone could buy marijuana in the amount they wanted, without any regulation.

Sergio stresses that politics in Switzerland legislates without knowing exactly what it does. "In the field of canapa (hemp) there is great hypocrisy, because it is not a crime to consume cannabis in small amounts (10 grams), therefore those of legal age who carry up to 10 gr do not fall into a criminal situation, yes in contravention, they are given a fine and end of the matter. But if we calculate that in Ticino, of the 30 thousand smokers we are, all elderly residents who smoke recreationally, pay VAT on what they consume, the State would receive a lot of money without having to carry out any hunting operation on those who smoke. They, instead, they manage to take 100 francs of a maximum of one 10% of smokers. ”

Sergio speaks and we are already in the middle of the hash remover. Laughter and heavy arms are a thing of the past. I feel that the look in my eyes expands and manages to capture and understand everything that happens in this chaotic room. I see Sergio's serious and upset face. I stop at their racing expressions: if for, he sits, raise your voice and wave your hands like you're scaring away a swarm of bees. It has an air to Manuel Pelligrini, something in his countenance and in his perfectly recited speech remind me of the solemnity of the "Engineer". And I think about Manchester City and the European transfer market, in Alexis Sánchez's challenge in English football and I remember Pinilla's stick. Times. My hands sweat. I leave the hash in the ashtray and focus again on Sergio.

“Since July of this year the new drug law has been in force in Ticino. Now shouldn't be a judge, but a policeman who fined up 100 fr. I plan to go to the park to smoke, I will have myself arrested and I will demonstrate how they act and the objective that the law enforcement agencies have. Because the moment you sent a policeman to hunt smokers you were already wrong. Then they will come two hours at the Carabineros power station with two policemen who have a cost to maintain them, then the office, the computer, the magistrate who costs more than two policemen and who has, too, office and secretary, then the fine will come, I will appeal to you and the process is longer. At last they will spend 40 O 50 mil fr. from the community to give me a fine of 100 fr. Not worth it."

Sociocracy and activism

The Ticino Recreational Cannabis Association se creó hace 4 years and groups about 10 thousand registered smokers, those who pay a monthly fee to finance travel and campaign material, in addition to participating in different recreational events. They have their objective very clear, which consists of systematizing, pay taxes and leave illegality to enter the system, making a database with its adherents and not to be persecuted more police or judicial. In December 2013 Cannabis Social Club project started in Geneva, in order to liberalize recreational consumption. The association aims to emulate the experience, but the government affirmed that in Ticino there is no need to create it, giving ugly door slam to Sergio's intentions and The association to legalize marijuana.

"Hemp is the plant that will save the world and must be a substitute for oil society, from chemistry and the pharmaceutical industry. We all live in the same aquarium, but to swim we need clean water. But they don't allow us to live in a natural environment. They give us medicine to cut salivation, but what hurts the kidneys, when you would be enough to smoke a gray hair and the salivation goes away, because one of its effects is precisely to dry the mouth. Why should I take a medicine that within its contraindications can ruin my kidneys? Cannabis allows you to have a vision of politics that is not traditional. Party politics, movements and ideologies has gone very well, communism, socialism, democentrism, everything has gone very well, but we must take a step forward. In this democracy you will vote, but it's like if you tell a woman let's make love, but at the right time you jerk off. Going to vote is jerking off. We want to make love and what we need is a sociocracy, in which there is no leader or boss. ”

The hash has me restless. I light my fourth cigarette to calm the craving. My hands sweat and my back is frosty. I look at the ground and mentally calculate its distance from the ceiling, well I feel that second by second they get closer and closer, increasing me claustrophobia. Concentrated smoke in the room doesn't help either. Tozo, I hit my chest and with glassy eyes, hot and red I look directly at Sergio's, who inspired continues.

"We asked the canton of Ticino to propose to the federal government an exception to the law so that it enters 3 Y 5 years the Cannabis Social Club project was made, getting into this one 30 thousand who smoke illegally on the street and thus police and judges worry about real criminal emergencies and after these 3 O 5 years to take stock to verify if it is better with the Cannabis Social Club than without it. ”

After this failure, Sergio says they will start this winter (21 from December) to lobby in the main cities of Switzerland, reinforcing their activism. "We do not want to walk in the public square with posters, we want to go give it away (la weed) and that the police come to arrest us and appear in the newspaper ”.

We go out for air. Sergio turns on another hash and seems to understand my, until that day, hash virginity, does not offer me, although he looks at me implying that if I want to smoke it is enough to extend my hand. But no. I do not do it. No more for today. We entered the store and surprise, the capo Il Canapaio has arrived and is rolling an AK-47 ... but that's another story.