On May 15, 2021, an amendment to the Federal Narcotics Act came into force in Switzerland, allowing pilot trials involving the dispensing of cannabis for non-medicinal purposes. (Benzinga)

These trials are intended to create the basis for future legal regulation and will include 5,000 registered participants, who have proven to the federal government they already have been consuming cannabis.

As the first European country to legalize cannabis, Luxembourg has called on other European countries to relax their drug laws, specifically cannabis production and consumption. According to the European state, the continent’s drug policy has not worked over the last few decades, and forbidding everything made it more attractive for people to find new ways of skirting laws.

The country’s relaxed laws will see residents over 18 years old able to buy cannabis for recreational use starting from 2020. The state will establish a cannabis agency to regulate all production and distribution. What’s more, minors between ages 12 and 17 will not face criminal charges if caught in possession of five grams or less of the drug. However, those who break the law will receive harsh penalties.

You probably wouldn't notice if you weren't really looking for it, but the World Economic Forum at Davos has at least one bar that's giving away small samples of cannabis.

A simple grey door and a single banner mark the establishment on Promenade, a short walk south of the iconic Belvedere Hotel. It has all the normal bar fare — several beers and other drinks are in the offing. But a closer inspection will reveal chocolates and small oil bottles on the counter. They're giving the samples away. And they contain cannabis.

A Swiss couple in their thirties who grew marijuana plants near Alhaurín el Grande were cleared of a drugs related offence by a Malaga court last week.

In a statement, the judge said that there was “more than reasonable doubt” over what would have happened to the marijuana once it had been grown. The couple had always insisted that the plants were only being grown for personal use, which is legal.

Guardia Civil officers arrested the pair in August 2015 after discovering the plantation on the plot of land they were living on in their mobile home, and reduced the couple to tears when they chopped the plants down.

Nine years after a Swiss referendum failed to gain public approval for cannabis legalisation, a campaign group has reignited the movement for reform.

The Swiss public could have another chance to decide if cannabis consumption should be legalized after the group Legalize It launched a popular initiative to that effect last week.

Cannabis is illegal in Switzerland though the law was relaxed in 2013. Instead of facing criminal proceedings, adults caught with ten grams or less of pot can be subjected to a 100-franc spot fine, though that is enforced to varying degrees across the country. 

A grey-haired woman in her early 60s daintily lifts small trays topped with different varieties of marijuana to her nose, sniffing each of them carefully.

“Which one would you recommend for someone with medical issues?” she asks salesman Paul Monot, co-founder of the DrGreen shop in western Switzerland.

Posters of bright green cannabis plants advertise its wares, which, like those sold openly in a growing number of shops across Switzerland, are completely legal.

There is a catch however: They won’t make you high.

“There is no psychotropic effect of our weed,” says Monot, at his store in Lausanne.

MMJ's Australian distribution partner has received import licence.

MMJ PhytoTech’s (ASX:MMJ) Australian distribution partner, HL Pharma, has received approval for a medicinal cannabis importation licence from the Department of Health, Australia.

This is an important development for MMJ as it enables the direct supply to Australian pharmacies through its strategic partnership with Melbourne-based HL Pharma.

Entrepreneurs have high hopes for cannabis in Switzerland, where business has suddenly taken off in recent months, six years after the country legalised low-potency "marijuana-light".

Switzerland changed its laws in 2011 to let adults buy and use cannabis with up to 1 percent THC, the chemical compound that produces a high. But its money-making potential seems only to have been discovered late last year, officials said.

"It started gradually last year, and then suddenly things went crazy in December 2016 and in 2017," said a spokesman for Switzerland's Customs Agency in Berne, which taxes the trade.

The number of retailers registered to sell low-THC cannabis has risen to 140 from just a handful last year, the agency says.