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Comment by Tom1380 | Hacker News Reader

I live in Zurich. I spent 5 minutes waiting at a bus stop in Langstrasse and I was offered cocaine and marijuana by a thug

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The comment was about heroin. Were you offered heroin?

Is cocaine and marijuana available from the government too? If not, what relevance is your comment?

Was this the first and only time you were waiting at a bus stop in Switzerland? If so, perhaps a notable story, if not then we'll need more information to conclude how bad this thug problem really is in Switzerland.

Langstrasse is as close to a red-light district as you'll find in Zurich.

It's gotten a lot better over the last couple of years, but stating that you were offered drugs there is like being offended that you walked past a casino in Vegas.

The problem is definitely with adultered products. Never accept anything from a random "thug".

Sounds like you have easy options for some common drugs. Not a bad thing perse and sounds like they didn't offer any opioids

Lmao as a kiwi living in UK it's definitely a bad thing. Can't go on a night out in London without half dozen dudes trying to sell you coke. Same dudes who are waiting in alleys waiting to mug people when they get the chance.

If you ever see >1 person just standing around and not walking somewhere in London early in the morning just stay the fuck away from them. And if they start heading your way, run.

I know how annoying this can be, especially in some countries this behaviour is often directly associated with criminality. Here in Switzerland dealers are often (not always) just that, they make enough to not bother with anything else. They don't look like "dirty" junkies, they don't bother stealing from tourists, they basically don't look for any extra attention when the business is rolling anyway.

When I was in Amsterdam people were offering hard drugs on the street but "no, thank you" was perfectly sufficient response

This. Same in Switzerland. Feels different in for example Prague, Vienna, ...

Survival bias: the police would come down on them on hard if they were scene as disrupting social order. They have to not look dirty to survive, Swiss police are no joke.

You've only told us that you're scared of being mugged by dealers! That doesn't even count as anecdotal evidence that it's likely.

Been mugged twice in London, police weren't interested at all, even with the one where I was assaulted pretty bad.

Got my car totalled on the m40 by a teen with a license of 6 months who was clearly on his phone - that one I was for sure lucky, could've easily been the end of me. The police? Didn't even show up. My police report that I filled out while still shaking got a response letter of "We don't care m8".

Is it too long, too little or what? Red light districts, official or not are the place to get drugs in european towns. Langstrasse is basically an official place for that, at least the most official Zurich has.

"waiting at a bus stop in Langstrasse" -> what were you expecting?

Probably a bus?

If you think cocaine and marijuana are comparable/interchangeable with heroin, you might want to educate yourself on the topic a bit more before trying to make a quip.

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