Basel

Law Enforcement

People said Basel’s prosecutor tolerated up to 30 grams, although smoking was illegal and dealing was verboten. The newer Marijuana Laws section distinguishes small-amount possession from use. The 30-gram figure was an impression of local tolerance.

Where to Buy Marijuana

Along the Rhine in Kleinbasel, between Mittlere Brücke and Johanniterbrücke, groups of African and Moroccan sellers offered bud and hash, especially in summer.

Mostly outdoor Swiss weed, with better indoor skunk if you knew to ask. Hash was as easy to find and usually less impressive. Quality varied wildly.

Marijuana Prices

50 francs for about 3.5 grams of outdoor weed or two to three grams of indoor. A smaller indoor bag ran around 20 francs for a gram. Hash went for around 50 francs an eighth, with more room to haggle on a large purchase.

The better weed was strong and seedless, with plenty of names to choose from.

More Information

City tale: Halcyon Haze

Drive past Basel’s industrial outskirts and you could mistake it for a drab factory city. Pity. In the ancient Marktplatz, the chemical industry leaves little sign beyond the prosperity it paid for.

Walk the tiny, winding Gässli and you feel Basel’s Celtic and Roman roots. You used to catch the smell of cannabis too. Take a current-powered ferry past the Münster Cathedral and you might once have spotted plants luxuriating on a balcony or in a courtyard along the Unterer Rheinweg.

Those halcyon days went underground.

“Where have all the flowers gone?” The ten-gram Duftsäckli once sold to scent the bath or keep moths out of closets vanished. So did the hemp pillows that insomniacs and asthmatics hoped would help them sleep.

Gone were thirty-odd Hanflade with their sidewalk boards, the skateboard repair shop that sold grass, and the well-appointed rooms above a goldsmith and a snazzy shoe shop.

Gone were the lotions, creams, oils, teas, incense and holders, smoking gear and grow books. Gone, too, the labeled little jeweler’s bags of Skunk, Pink and Honolulu Haze.

For a moment there were more hemp shops than museums. Museums won out. The three-country pass covered more than 100 museums around Basel in Switzerland, Germany and France.

For a different sort of high, available without the hassle of police, border guards or dogs: Swiss chocolate.

The historical hemp-shop background

Hemp production expanded through the ’90s. Investigators thought much of the harvest went to the drug market rather than uses like textile fiber. Hash was mostly sold on the street. Marijuana increasingly went through hemp shops as aromatic pillows. Switzerland’s 26 cantons have their own governments, courts and constitutions. You could argue there were 26 drug policies.

Police estimated more than 100 metric tons of drug-grade cannabis harvested in 1998. A period count put hemp shops at 135 nationwide after growth took off in 1996: 36 in Zürich city and canton, 18 in St. Gallen, 16 in Ticino, seven in Basel and six in Berne. Police attributed 85–95% of sales at most shops to drug products such as hemp pillows, aroma bags, refills and hemp coins. Aroma-bag cannabis was often said to run 8–10% THC.