En Luxembourg chaque ménage sera autorisé à cultiver quatre plants. Il revient par contre aussi sur l’annonce en grande pompe de la légalisation du cannabis, datant de 2018, et qui est désormais mise entre parenthèses. «La crise sanitaire est venue nous rappeler notre vulnérabilité. Le pays peut rapidement se retrouver isolé si un pays voisin décide de fermer ses frontières. L’espace Schengen n’est pas à ignorer», avançait la ministre de la Justice, Sam Tanson, pour expliquer le coup de frein subit par le projet de légalisation du cannabis récréatif. L’AFP est plus claire : «(…) le gouvernement du libéral Xavier Bettel a revu ses ambitions à la baisse pour ménager ses relations avec les pays voisins, notamment avec la France qui craignait l’émergence d’un lieu de trafic à ses frontières».

La política de drogas “Sembrando Vida Desterramos el Narcotráfico” 2023-2033 que presenta el presidente Gustavo Petro en Cauca ha recibido comentarios positivos y también críticas de distintos sectores por las inconsistencias y vacíos detectados. En comparación con los enfoques punitivos predominantes en el pasado, la política formulada reconoce explícitamente que la “guerra contra las drogas” fracasó a nivel mundial, lo que exige transformar sustancialmente las premisas que criminalizan a los pequeños productores de plantas prohibidas, a los consumidores de drogas y mantienen en un segundo plano los enfoques de secuencia debida y derechos humanos también incluidos en instrumentos de Naciones Unidas. (En contexto: Los detalles del borrador de la política de drogas de Petro, que costaría 18 billones de pesos)

Across the world, the state of environmental stress is unprecedented. As scholarship and activism on ‘environmental justice’ points out, poorer and marginalised communities face particular exposure to environmental harms. This holds particularly true for populations in the global South. The role of illicit drugs in relation to these environmental stresses is an underexplored terrain. Yet, as this report will argue, drugs, as well as the policy responses to them, are an environmental issue.

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There 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 regulation of khat, one of the most recent psychoactive drugs to become a globally traded commodity, remains hotly contested within different producer and consumer countries. As regimes vary, it has been possible to compare khat policies in Africa, Europe and North America from different disciplinary perspectives. The research established the significance of khat for rural producers, regional economies, as a tax base and source of foreign exchange. At the same time, khat as a psychoactive substance is associated with health and public safety problems that in turn are met with often ill-informed legislative responses. Bans have in turn lead to the criminalisation of users and sellers and illegal drug markets.

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La gobernadora de Bermudas, Rena Lalgie, anunció que el Reino Unido bloqueó la controvertida apuesta del Gobierno local de legalizar el uso y la producción del cannabis en este territorio británico de ultramar. "He recibido una instrucción, emitida a mí en nombre de Su Majestad (la reina Isabel II), de no aprobar el proyecto de ley tal como está redactado", dijo la gobernadora en un comunicado sobre una medida que estaba pendiente desde hace meses del consentimiento real. Lalgie detalló que Londres concluyó que el proyecto de ley "no es coherente con las obligaciones que tienen el Reino Unido y Bermudas en virtud de la Convención Única sobre Estupefacientes de 1961". (Véase también: Bermudas seguirá adelante con su proyecto para legalizar la producción de cannabis)

Pocas políticas públicas han sido aplicadas de forma tan consistentemente uniforme en prácticamente todo el globo como la prohibición de la producción y comercialización de estupefacientes para usos no médicos. Pero también pocas han tenido un resultado tan pobre. Resulta inminente profundizar un debate, ya inexorablemente abierto, sobre alternativas de política pública en drogas a partir de una valoración crítica e inteligente de los aciertos y, sobre todo, de los errores cometidos. Pero para ello será necesario despojarnos de los viejos ropajes dogmáticos donde todo aquello que no es la prohibición absoluta implica un sacrificio de la salud de la gente.

Dating back to the latter part of 1800s, precisely in 1894-95, the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission consisting of medical experts of Indian and British origin concluded that moderate use of cannabis was the rule in India, and produced practically no ill-effects. “What countries like Uruguay and Canada are doing now, India had already proposed 120 years ago,” says Tom Blickman from the Transnational Institute (TNI), an international policy think tank based in the Netherlands. “Had the wisdom of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission’s recommendations prevailed, we would have prevented a lot of misery by erroneous drug control policies,” he points out. (See also: A legal hallucination)

Two of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cannabis scheduling recommendations might face an uphill battle getting adopted later this year by the United Nations’ Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND). That revelation stems from an analysis of statements made by U.N.-member states at a recent two-day CND meeting. Still, many in the cannabis industry are hoping for a positive outcome at the end of the year, when a vote is planned. The reason: If the two recommendations discussed at the CND meeting in June are approved, international trade in certain CBD preparations is expected to become more free.

Within the last decade the hitherto little known psychoactive substance of khat has emerged as a regional and international issue. In the Horn of Africa khat production has spurred an economic boom, but dramatic increases in consumption have raised public health concerns. Given the complexity of the topic spanning multiple academic disciplines and fields of professional practice, the need for a systematic overview is urgent.

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The cannabis plant has been used for spiritual, medicinal and recreational purposes since the early days of civilization. In this report the Transnational Institute and the Global Drug Policy Observatory describe in detail the history of international control and how cannabis was included in the current UN drug control system. Cannabis was condemned by the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as a psychoactive drug with “particularly dangerous properties” and hardly any therapeutic value.

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In April 2016, representatives of the world’s nations will gather to evaluate drug policy in a United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS). While prohibitionist policies are still the norm, a rising tide of voices are demanding evidence based responses that respect human rights, promote public health, and reduce crime. Voices for reform reached the UN General Assembly in 2012 when the presidents of Mexico, Colombia, and Guatemala, fatigued by the drug war, requested that the UN hold a session to evaluate the impact of international drug policies.

The US drug policy is changing, pitting states against federal law. This essay explores this inner friction of contradictory drug legislation, and what it may mean for the international drug control regime, itself a result of US drug policy. (4,400 words)

The 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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In 2018, Malta became one of the first European countries to fully decriminalise cannabis for medicinal purposes; followed up by a broader reform to (within limits) decriminalise the drug for recreational purposes, too. For people brought up in a very different Malta – where drug-users were routinely criminalised – the contrast is rather striking. Yet it also forms part of what appears to be an international movement: away from ‘prohibitionism’, and towards a ‘harm-reduction’ approach. Decriminalisation itself is not even all that ‘new’, really:  if you look at individual countries, and how their drug legislation has evolved over the decades, you will find that the process has actually been ongoing for around 20 or 30 years.

A document prepared by the chair of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) has laid out a course to keep on track for December’s key vote on the World Health Organization’s cannabis scheduling recommendations. This is positive news for industry stakeholders concerned about a possible delay stemming from the coronavirus crisis. While the likely outcome of the vote is not yet known, it could have far-reaching implications for the global cannabis industry. One recommendation, for instance, would recognize the medical value and a lesser potential for harm of cannabis at a U.N. level – making it easier for member countries to adopt medical cannabis programs.

En el informe recientemente publicado “High Compliance: una legalización lex lata para la industria del cannabis no medicinal“, Kenzi Riboulet-Zemouli afirma haber descubierto una nueva justificación legal para regular el cannabis recreativo, en conformidad con la Convención Única de 1961 sobre Estupefacientes de las Naciones Unidas. Una lectura más atenta revela la naturaleza confusa y legalmente indefendible de la ruta de escape propuesta en el documento. Y si bien consideramos que los tratados de control de drogas de la ONU están desactualizados y no son aptos para su propósito, discrepamos rotundamente con las propuestas que buscarían superar los desafíos basados en argumentos legalmente erróneos e inválidos. El documento de High Compliance construye un castillo de naipes legal que se derrumba cuando sus argumentos centrales son impugnados y eliminados.

In 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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In a highly-anticipated vote held on December 2, the United Nations Commission for Narcotic Drugs reclassified cannabis as a less dangerous drug. The historic vote removed cannabis from the Schedule IV category, where it was listed alongside dangerous and highly addictive opioids like heroin. India voted in favour. As a signatory to the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs , anyone caught peddling, scoring or smoking weed could be arrested in India under the obligatory 1985 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS). But while the way forward is still foggy, experts believe this historic vote could spark social acceptance and a wider framework when it comes to policing pot users. (See also: Clear the smoke)