The UN’s drug agency to back off cannabis

468 0

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime no longer considers cannabis a Schedule IV drug

The annual Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s governing body, voted this week 27 to 25 with one abstention to make changes to how the world views cannabis. It agreed to remove cannabis and cannabis resin from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which is a global text governing drug controls, which should help cannabis reform efforts on a global level.

As a result, cannabis has been removed from the most tightly controlled category of narcotic drugs. The Commission was following the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO) to make research into its medical use easier to access. The actual WHO recommendation came out in 2019 and reads “cannabis and cannabis resin should be scheduled at a level of control that will prevent harm caused by cannabis use and at the same time will not act as a barrier to access and to research and development of cannabis-related preparation for medical use.”

Believe it or not, before the passage of this declaration, cannabis was classified as Schedule IV along with heroin, fentanyl and opioids that are dangerous and can be deadly if misused. This was obviously an over-reaction. As per the recommendations of the WHO, cannabis will now be listed under Schedule I, which, while including cocaine, does not carry the ugly stigma of the opioids, nor the risk of addiction or death related to Schedule IV drugs.

For cannabis users in the United States, this United Nations ruling will probably not make any immediate difference. However, lawyers and advocates arguing the case for the legalization of marijuana in the US just got an excellent reference to show the judges on the case when the issue comes up.