Regular cannabis users given legal access to regulated products through pharmacies are moving away from smoking and towards less harmful ways of taking cannabis, according to interim findings from a randomised trial led by researchers at the University of Bern.

The Safer Cannabis Research in Pharmacies Trial (SCRIPT) followed 1,177 regular cannabis users across Bern, Biel and Lucerne for six months. Researchers randomly split the group, with 588 given immediate access to buy regulated products from participating pharmacies while the remaining 589 carried on sourcing cannabis as they normally would, before gaining pharmacy access themselves at the six-month mark

The results show a significant shift in consumption patterns: In the group with pharmacy access, the proportion smoking cannabis dropped from 78% to 58% over six months. Meanwhile, the control group saw virtually no change, remaining at around 82%.

“The majority of study participants consumed cannabis exclusively by smoking at the start of the study,” the report states. “Over the course of six months, people with access to cannabis products in pharmacies switched more frequently to smoke-free forms of consumption or combined different forms of consumption, whilst hardly any changes were observed in the control group.”

Crucially, the study found no evidence that regulated pharmacy sales increase consumption frequency. Cannabis and tobacco use remained largely stable in both groups, suggesting that regulated access does not drive higher consumption rates.

The SCRIPT scheme is designed to test how cannabis consumers respond to stringent regulation. Participating pharmacies charge prices above illegal market rates, including a simulated tax of CHF 3-4 per gramme – representing 30-50% of the final sale price depending on THC content. This makes SCRIPT’s taxation the highest among Swiss cannabis pilot projects.

Products are sold in plain packaging with standardised health warnings, modelled on Canadian regulations. Monthly purchase limits are capped at 10g of THC, with a maximum of 2g per transaction. All products adhered to a 20% THC limit.

Professor Reto Auer, who led the study, explained that the approach positions SCRIPT on “the more regulated side” of cannabis policy. The study deliberately avoided competing with the illegal market through attractive pricing or marketing, instead focusing on harm reduction within strict regulatory boundaries.

Participating pharmacies reported high satisfaction with the new customers, describing them as “patient, friendly, open and well-informed”. Several pharmacy staff said their preconceptions about cannabis users had changed positively through direct contact.

Study participants also responded favourably to the pharmacy model. After six months, 87% found purchasing cannabis in pharmacies pleasant, 71% were satisfied with staff consultations, and 79% felt sufficient privacy was maintained.

Pharmacists provided counselling on study products and safer consumption methods. Some 71% of participants reported sharing harm reduction information with others in their social circles.

Cannabis flowers accounted for roughly 65% of all sales over the two-year period. E-liquids for vaping made up 21% of purchases, whilst cannabis resin represented 11% and tinctures just 3%.

The study also analysed 127 illegal market cannabis samples provided by participants. Results showed that self-reported THC estimates were wildly inaccurate – only one person correctly assessed their sample’s THC content out of 69 tested. Some participants underestimated by up to 24 percentage points, whilst others overestimated by a similar margin.

Nine samples tested positive for synthetic cannabinoids. Most illegal market cannabis was obtained through friends or known dealers (66%), with 14% from known dealers, 11% home-grown and 9% from unknown sources including street dealers and online.

The pilot continues until 2029, with pharmacy sales extended until 31/10/2028. Researchers plan to analyse long-term effects including changes in tobacco consumption, pneumological risk factors and the prevalence of cannabis hyperemesis syndrome.

Professor Auer emphasised that whilst SCRIPT provides robust evidence about individual-level effects of regulated access, broader societal impacts – such as effects on non-users, youth, consumption norms or the illegal market – require additional data sources, including other Swiss pilot projects and international regulatory experiences.

The findings echo those from other Swiss cannabis trials, such as Zurich’s pharmacy-based pilot, Züri Can, where people reported high satisfaction with harm-reduction advice from sales staff after its first year.

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Headlines around the world tied a captain’s positive marijuana test to a terrifying midair plunge. He wasn’t the one flying. The first officer was at the controls, and Airbus says the aircraft registered pressure losses across all three hydraulic systems and that key flight controls stopped responding for four seconds. Every one of those headlines was technically true. Together, they told a story the investigation hasn’t established.

You have probably seen some version of this story by now. An Air India jet flying from Phuket to Delhi dropped roughly 300 feet in cruise, injured 24 people, and its captain later tested positive for marijuana.

Both of those things are true.

Here is what a great many of those headlines left out. The captain who tested positive was not the pilot flying the airplane when it happened. According to his own account to investigators, first reported by Hindustan Times, he was not in his seat. He was standing behind the first officer, and when the aircraft moved, it threw him to the cockpit floor.

The first officer was the one at the controls.

What Happened at 36,000 Feet

Air India flight AI2379, an Airbus A320neo registered VT-EXO, left Phuket on the morning of August 4 with 137 passengers and eight crew members. At around 9:33 a.m. India time, cruising near 36,160 feet over the Odisha coast, the aircraft lost roughly 300 feet of altitude. Twenty passengers and four cabin crew members were hurt. The plane stayed airborne for about another hour and a half and landed safely in Delhi.

Air India first described the event as turbulence. It later dropped that description and called it a sudden loss of altitude. Indian authorities classified it as a serious incident, and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is investigating with technical help from Airbus and France’s BEA.

The aircraft’s Centralised Fault Display System log, reviewed by Hindustan Times, recorded nine warning messages inside a single minute at around 9:32 a.m. Low pressure in the Green, Blue and Yellow hydraulic systems. Low reservoir levels in Yellow and Blue. An autopilot disconnect. An elevator flight-control fault.

An A320 has three independent hydraulic systems for a reason. They are what move the surfaces that point the airplane up, down and sideways. All three registered pressure loss in quick succession. The Airbus analysis, described by The Tribune, puts it down to the second: one system failed just before 9:32:44 a.m., the other two failed at 9:32:45, and all three came back seven seconds later.

Inside the cockpit

The first officer is flying the aircraft. The captain, acting as pilot monitoring, is standing behind the first officer’s seat after a trip to the washroom, discussing the air conditioning system.

9:32:44 a.m. IST. One hydraulic system fails. One second later, the other two go. Nine warnings hit in under a minute. The autopilot disconnects.

The aircraft pitches upward. For roughly four seconds, per Airbus, the elevators and ailerons are unusable.

The first officer applies full nose-down input. Airbus says there is “no direct response” from the flight-control surfaces.

Seven seconds after the first failure, all three systems are back. The aircraft drops roughly 300 feet. The captain is thrown to the cockpit floor.

That sequence comes from Airbus’s own preliminary assessment, written in response to a request from Air India and reviewed by Reuters. The manufacturer has not determined why the hydraulic pressure dropped. It has asked the airline to test the hydraulic systems and the sensors that monitor them, to pull some of those sensors for inspection, and to check the aircraft for structural damage, because the jet took forces beyond its specified limits during the drop. It also wants maintenance records covering the previous month and fuller accounts from both pilots.

Reuters also reported, plainly, that no link has been established between the captain’s test result and the loss of altitude.

Everything the Captain Is Facing

None of the above is a defense of Sudeep Vashistha, and this piece is not going to pretend otherwise.

A post-flight screening returned a non-negative result. A confirmatory test came back positive for cannabis. Investigators questioned him for over an hour. He told them he had been struggling to sleep for some time because of personal circumstances, that he had not slept well during the Phuket layover, and that he was taking medication prescribed by his family doctor for the problem. He also told them he had slept for 30 to 35 minutes during the flight itself.

Both pilots have been pulled from the flying roster pending the outcome of the investigation. Air India began mandatory psychoactive substance screening for its entire pilot workforce on August 13, across the mainline carrier and Air India Express, going further than what the Directorate General of Civil Aviation currently requires.

Whether a captain running on very little sleep, taking medication whose disclosure status remains unclear, and with cannabis metabolites in his system should have been in that cockpit at all is a serious question. Investigators have every reason to ask it. Air India has every reason to answer it.

It is a different question from what made the airplane drop.

Technically True Is Not the Same as True

Look at how the story got packaged. A plane dropped 300 feet. A pilot tested positive for marijuana. Put those two sentences next to each other, in that order, under one headline, and the reader does the rest of the work without being asked.

Nobody had to write the word “caused.” The arrangement said it.

Imagine a car crashes and the owner is drunk. Now imagine he was in the passenger seat and his sober brother was driving. “Car Owner Was Drunk When Vehicle Crashed” is a true sentence. It is also a sentence that leaves a reader believing something the reporter knows is not the case.

There is a second thing worth saying, and it is the point cannabis consumers have been making for decades in every context from job applications to custody hearings. A positive result for cannabis metabolites establishes exposure. It does not establish when, and it does not establish impairment at any particular moment. That is a real limitation of the test and it is well understood.

But that argument is not even necessary here, which is what makes this case unusual. You do not have to litigate toxicology. You only have to ask who was holding the controls.

Maybe Sudeep Vashistha had no business anywhere near that cockpit on August 4. Investigators will decide that, and they should. Maybe his test result will end up mattering to the final report.

But if a positive marijuana test was important enough to put in the headline, who was actually flying the airplane was important enough to mention.

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