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Rescheduling cannabis at the UN level
Here’s all you need to know about the WHO’s recommendations to reschedule cannabis and cannabis-related substances
Thursday, October 15, 2020Following its first-ever critical review of cannabis, in January 2019 the World Health Organization's Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) issued recommendations to reschedule cannabis and cannabis-related substances. The Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) are set to vote on these recommendations in December 2020. Eagerly awaited, the ECDD recommendations contain some positive points, such as acknowledging the medicinal usefulness of cannabis by removing it from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs and clarifying that cannabidiol (CBD) is not under international control. But the ECDD recommendations also reveal problematic underlying evaluation methods and scheduling procedures along with a very questionable rationale for keeping cannabis in Schedule I. Read more ...
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A World with Drugs: Legal Regulation through a Development Lens
Webinar Series
Drugs are a development issue. Let’s stop pretending that they’re not. The so-called ‘war on drugs’ has been undermining progress towards development goals for decades. It has fuelled violence and conflict, undermined democracy, and driven poverty, inequality and poor health worldwide. The shift towards the legal regulation of drugs provides a chance to repair the harms of the past – and create a fairer, more just world for the future. Now is the time to build a new approach to drugs that prioritises, promotes and protects health and well-being, helps address poverty and inequality, and contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Join us for this ground-breaking 8-part webinar series
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Cannabis Regulation and Development
Fair(er) Trade Options for Emerging Legal Markets
David Bewley-Taylor, Martin Jelsma, and Sylvia KayDrug Policies and Development: Conflict and Coexistence
12th volume of International Development Policy, August 2020Significant policy shifts have led to an unprecedented boom in medical cannabis markets, while a growing number of countries are moving towards the legal regulation of adult non-medical use. This trend is likely to bring a range of benefits. Yet there are growing concerns over the many for-profit cannabis companies from the global North that are aggressively competing to capture the licit spaces now opening in the multibillion-dollar global cannabis market. This threatens to push small-scale traditional farmers from the global South out of the emerging legal markets.
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Smokable cocaine markets in Latin America and the Caribbean
A call for a sustainable policy response
Ernesto Cortés Amador & Pien MetaalTransnational Institute (TNI)
March 2020The smokable cocaine market was established decades ago, and is definitely not a new phenomenon. Rather than disappear, it is undergoing a slow expansion: from constituting a rather localized and isolated habit in the Andean region in the 1970s, its reach has extended in all directions, throughout North and South-America, including the Caribbean and Central American regions. Societies in the Americas have coexisted with smokable cocaines for over four decades, but - surprisingly - there is a dearth of research on the development of the market, or much first-hand evidence of how this substance is actually commercialized and used by millions of people in the region.
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UN Common Position on drug policy
Consolidating system-wide coherence
Martin JelsmaBriefing paper
December 2019In November 2018, the UN System CEB adopted the ‘UN system common position supporting the implementation of the international drug control policy through effective inter-agency collaboration’, expressing the shared drug policy principles of all UN organisations and committing them to speak with one voice. The CEB is the highest-level coordination forum of the UN system, convening biannual meetings of the heads of all UN agencies, programmes and related institutions, chaired by the UN Secretary General.
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Regulating Drugs: Resolving Conflicts with the UN Drug Control Treaty System
John Walsh & Martin JelsmaJournal of Illicit Economies and Development, 1(3), pp.266–271
November 2019There are good reasons to legally regulate drugs markets, rather than persist with efforts to ban all non-medical uses of psychoactive substances. Regulated cannabis and coca markets are already a reality in several countries, with more likely to follow. But ignoring or denying that such policy shifts contravene certain obligations under the UN drug control treaties is untenable and risks undermining basic principles of international law. States enacting cannabis regulation must find a way to align their reforms with their international obligations.
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The Challenges of Medicinal Cannabis in Colombia
A look at small - and medium - scale growers
Nicolás Martínez RiveraDrug Policy Briefing Nr. 52
September 2019In July 2016, the Colombian government enacted Law 1787, which regulates the use of medicinal cannabis and its trade in the country. With this decision and a series of subsequent resolutions, Colombia joined the more than a dozen countries that have put into practice different types of regulation to explore the advantages of this plant as an alternative pharmaceutical. Even though the law stipulates that 10 per cent of production should come from small- and medium- scale growers, the reality is that most of the business has been dominated by large local and foreign investors.
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Cannabis regulation and local authorities in Europe
Bottom-up policy reform for cannabis regulation
Transnational Institute (TNI)
March 2019Local and regional authorities across Europe are confronted with the negative consequences of a persisting illicit cannabis market. Increasingly, local and regional authorities, non-governmental pressure groups and grassroots movements are advocating a regulation of the recreational cannabis market. The Transnational Institute (TNI) analysed possible cannabis market regulation models (in Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands) to allow local authorities to share best practices and improve the understanding of drug markets as a means to reduce the negative consequences of illicit drug markets on individuals and society.
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Fair(er) Trade Options for the Cannabis Market
Martin Jelsma, Sylvia Kay & David Bewley-TaylorCannabis Innovate
Policy Report 1, March 2019Policy changes over the past five years or so have dramatically reshaped the global cannabis market. Not only has there been an unprecedented boom in medical markets, but following policy shifts in several jurisdictions a growing number of countries are also preparing for legal regulation of non-medical use. Such moves look set to bring a clear range of benefits in terms of health and human rights. As this groundbreaking Report, highlights, however, there are also serious concerns about the unfolding market dynamics.
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The WHO’s First-Ever Critical Review of Cannabis
A Mixture of Obvious Recommendations Deserving Support and Dubious Methods and Outcomes Requiring Scrutiny
Transnational Institute (TNI), Global Drug Policy Observatory (GDPO-Swansea University) & Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
March 2019The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD or Expert Committee) released in January 2019 the outcomes of the first-ever critical review of cannabis, recommending a series of changes in the current scheduling of cannabis-related substances under the UN drug control conventions. Eagerly awaited, the ECDD recommendations contain some clearly positive points, such as acknowledging the medicinal usefulness of cannabis by removing it from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs; clarifying that cannabidiol (CBD) is not under international control; and addressing some long-standing scheduling inconsistencies.
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