Hash/weed ratio : The hash return?

weed has clearly dominated the market for decades, hash almost seemed to disappear. But now we see a trend reversal: The share of hash is on the rise again, and this also among the youngest who had almost never consumed hash in the past.

We presented the first graphs on hemp prosecutions in 2018 in the last LI, here are further breakdowns. The left graph shows the trend of those accused of hash (brown) versus weed (green). To this we put the fixed penalties (OB, gray) so we can show all transgression prosecutions, even if OB does not record the substance.

We summarize the OB categories as follows: Hash = hashish, hash oil, and synthetic cannabinoids; weed = cannabis, marijuana, hemp (young plant, plant fresh, plant dried), and hemp seeds.

We see that the vast majority of defendants get it for weed offenses. At the beginning of the 1990s, it was quite different: until 1997, the vast majority of prosecutions concerned hash - weed was only a marginal product. However, since 1998 and until today, weed has established itself as the most frequent reason for reprimands.

At the same time, the number of hash defendants fell extremely low: in 2014, one could have assumed that hash consumption in Switzerland was dying out. But since then, we have observed a reversal of the trend: there have been more hash defendants again. Now, in terms of numbers, there are again as many as in 2009 - and this despite the fact that the total number of defendants has decreased. The proportion of hash defendants was 11.7% in 2009, 6.9% in 2014 and 15.9% in 2018.

It was clearly the young who had brought the weed boom forward. The older ones had grown up with hash almost without exception. Therefore, the proportion of hash users among the elderly had always been much higher than among the young. For example in 2009: In our category with the over 40-year-olds, the hash share was a respectable 28%. Among those under 18, it was 5% (see chart at right). In the years up to 2015, the share of hash fell sharply, especially among the two oldest groups, to around 10%. But among younger people, the figure tended to stagnate, and from 2015 the share of hash began to rise rapidly in all age groups.

And now in 2018, almost all age categories have reached a similar value for hash of 15 to 17% for the first time. This has never happened before and is really a surprise!

We probably can't talk about a real hash revival yet, given the still overwhelmingly clear weed dominance. But the illegal cannabis market continues to change.

Swiss Federal Statistical Office (SFSO), Police Crime Statistics, Annual Reports 2009 to 2018. Graphical representation by us. We have listed problems with the statistics in our source reference in LI84.