The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, already knows the conclusions of the meeting of the World Health Organization ‘s (WHO) Expert Committee on Drug Dependence, held in June 2018. This is a first step in the right direction after more than 50 years of policy that is not based on scientific evidence.

To highlight, the following resolutions:

Cannabidiol (CBD) should not be controlled on the lists of prohibited substances in drug control conventions.

A critical review of the scientific literature on the cannabis plant and its resin, extracts or tinctures of cannabis (including extracts rich in CBD), the Delta-9-THC component and the THC Isomers will be carried out.

The next meeting of the Expert Committee will take place in November 2018, where these specific assessments will be made and the Committee will make recommendations on the potential reclassification of cannabis from lists I and VI. All these elements must be considered during the next meeting of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) that will take place in March 2019.

If we’re optimistic, all these movements could lead to a reclassification of cannabis on the prohibited substances lists, which could be interpreted as the “green light” for different countries of the world to move towards the legalization of cannabis and its derivatives.

The team at ICEERS would like to highlight the great work done by various non-governmental organizations, especially FAAT, which, over the last few years, has devoted its efforts to fostering this unprecedented turn of events. With the help of FAAT, ICEERS has been able to make various contributions to the process, including the document: “ECDD40 Procedural, methodological and terminological bias. Joint Civil Society Contribution to the 40th Meeting of the WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence” on which the Spanish doctor Alejandra Outomuro also collaborated.

Finally, we asked for an appraisal of this news from Kenzi Riboulet, FAAT’s principal investigator and speaker at the 2018 CANNABMED Congress. For Riboulet, “Fifty-three years after denying any medical use of cannabis, the UN is discreetly beginning to change its mind.” He adds that, in fact, “they are trying to do it in the most discreet way possible but in reality these conclusions are a direct affront to the whole hygienist and prohibitionist doctrine in which the World Health Organization has been trapped for 50 years.”

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