Beckley Briefing Paper Number 18 - The Swiss Four Pillars Policy: An Evolution From Local Experimentation to Federal Law

Within the context of the November referendum, this briefing paper aims to relate lessons learned by the incremental implementation of the Four Pillar Policy in Switzerland. Initially innovative and centred in ‘progressive’ urban areas, the 4-Pillar Policy spread little by little throughout the nation. Considered politically radical at its inception, the principle of harm reduction gradually gained the support of the population as a whole