Conventions

Willful Blindness:  INCB can find nothing good to say on cannabis legalisation

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 10:59:41 +0000

In its Report for 2022, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the “independent, quasi-judicial expert body” that monitors the implementation of the UN drug control conventions, focuses on ...

A House of Cards

Fri, 06 May 2022 09:37:42 +0000

In a recently published report, ‘High compliance, a lex lata legalization for the non-medical cannabis industry’, Kenzi Riboulet-Zemouli claims to have discovered a new legal justification for regula ...

The shortcomings and side effects of substance scheduling

Fri, 08 Apr 2022 14:38:27 +0000

Substance scheduling is a central function of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and a longstanding pillar of international and national drug policies. Despite the continued reliance on scheduling, the ...

The UN Drug Control Conventions

Thu, 08 Oct 2015 15:10:54 +0000

For more than ten years, TNI’s Drugs & Democracy programme has been studying the UN drug control conventions and the institutional architecture of the UN drug control regime. As we approach the 2016 ...

Regulating Drugs: Resolving Conflicts with the UN Drug Control Treaty System

Mon, 02 Dec 2019 15:06:42 +0000

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 re ...

Balancing Treaty Stability and Change

Thu, 22 Mar 2018 15:13:50 +0000

Legal tensions are growing within the international drug control regime as increasing numbers of member states move towards or seriously consider legal regulation of the cannabis market for non-medic ...

If the U.S. legalizes marijuana, what happens to its international drug treaties?

Thu, 11 Jan 2018 12:22:34 +0000

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded a Barack Obama-era federal policy that allowed recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington, he did more than reignite a domestic legal and cultural ...

The Case for International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Control

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 09:06:32 +0000

The international drug control treaties contribute directly to an environment of human rights risk and violations. The drug treaties are what are known within international law as “suppression conven ...

A New International Legal Regime for a New Reality in the War Against Drugs

Thu, 04 May 2017 14:25:19 +0000

After twenty-three years under the latest international agreement, drug consumption has risen, production has increased, and some states remain helpless against the power of organized crime fueled by ...

Cannabis and Cannabis Resin

Tue, 18 Oct 2016 09:39:20 +0000

The scheduling under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs assumes a scientific justification. However, cannabis and cannabis resin have never been evaluated by the World Health Organisation (WHO) ...

Canada faces choice on international drug treaties over legalized pot

Tue, 04 Oct 2016 18:40:25 +0000

As Canada moves forward with its plan to legalize marijuana, government officials have at least one international conundrum to sort out: what to do about the global treaties Canada has signed that pr ...

Cannabis Regulation and the UN Drug Treaties

Sun, 17 Apr 2016 19:01:29 +0000

As jurisdictions enact reforms creating legal access to cannabis for purposes other than exclusively “medical and scientific,” tensions surrounding the existing UN drug treaties and evolving law and ...

Canada's marijuana legalization plan flouts 3 UN drug conventions

Tue, 17 May 2016 13:40:26 +0000

The federal government's plan to legalize marijuana contravenes Canada's adherence to the UN drug control conventions, according to a commentary in the CMAJ medical journal. Canada is legally obligat ...

Cannabis and the Conventions: UNGASS and Beyond

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 13:56:05 +0000

With an increasing number of jurisdictions enacting or contemplating reforms creating legal access to cannabis for purposes other than exclusively "medical and scientific," tensions regarding the dru ...

UNGASS 2016: Prospects for Treaty Reform and UN System-Wide Coherence on Drug Policy

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 11:11:09 +0000

This paper explores key lessons from the 1990 Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Drug Abuse (UNGASS 1990) and the 1998 Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on ...

International Law and Drug Policy Reform

Fri, 03 Jul 2015 14:22:58 +0000

Drug policy reform is currently higher on the international agenda than it has been in recent memory. With a United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs set for 19-21 April 2016 ...

Illegal drugs laws: Clearing a 50-year-old obstacle to research

Tue, 03 Feb 2015 16:54:39 +0000

The United Nations drug control conventions of 1960 and 1971 and later additions have inadvertently resulted in perhaps the greatest restrictions of medical and life sciences research. These conventi ...

Marijuana legalization is an opportunity to modernize international drug treaties

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 14:34:49 +0000

Two U.S. states have legalized recreational marijuana, and more may follow; the Obama administration has conditionally accepted these experiments. Such actions are in obvious tension with three inter ...

State Department official calls for 'flexibility' on drug control treaties

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 12:55:39 +0000

Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield called for "flexible" interpretations of international drug control treaties at the United Nations in New York City, citing marijuana legalization in C ...

US signals shift in international drug policy

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 11:45:54 +0000

In a press conference at the United Nations in New York on October 9, US official William Brownfield laid the groundwork for a new US approach to international drug policy, pointing to the changing p ...