What are the different police forces allowed to do?

It is slowly becoming confusing. We can look at new uniforms all the time. But are they really all policemen? Well-known police forces are, for example, the cantonal police forces. These are, so to speak, the backbone of the police prosecution. Every canton has one - they are supposed to enforce the current legal situation. In addition, there are also city police forces in larger communities (especially cities), which are often primarily responsible for traffic, but in larger cities also for drugs, and thus also for smoking pot.

Private security services, whether employed by municipalities or by larger companies, do not actually have police powers - they are normal private citizens, like everyone else. However, private individuals, if they observe people at misdemeanor, may detain them and hand them over to the police. However, in the case of contraventions, such as smoking pot, they are not allowed to use force. However, they can notify the police and report the person smoking pot.

The railroad police, however, are not simply a private police force without powers, but they are real police officers: they go to the police school in Neuchâtel and they are sworn in. But they can be deployed in the whole territory of Switzerland, only restricted to the area that the corresponding railroad company has: So for SBB, it's the entire trains, stations and associated areas. (This does not mean, however, that „normal“ police forces cannot also be active there). This makes the railroad police almost something like a federal police force, which does not exist in Switzerland. By the way, they also have their own protocols for interrogating stoned train passengers.

For many years, it was possible to smoke pot in the trains practically undisturbed. This has been history for some time - 100 new railroad policewomen were trained and let loose on the stoners. Then the new total of 250 railroad police officers with zero tolerance stopped smoking weed on the trains. And nowadays it is already forbidden to smoke a cigarette on the trains.

This is actually only responsible for military personnel. However, it not only patrols military premises, but also trains and train stations, for example. There, they are supposed to check that members of the armed forces behave in accordance with the regulations (for example, that they do not leave their weapons lying around unattended). Of course, they also have to intervene if they catch military personnel smoking pot. They should not really care about civilians - but they can always report them to the civilian police.

Everything that happens in public is monitored more and more strictly. Video cameras, security services and even military drones (unmanned small aircraft) explore every nook and cranny and discover people smoking pot again and again. The pressure here will continue to increase. And THC drinkers will get caught in the tightening meshes if they are not careful.