Page 35 - Nile Explorer Issue 12

Special Report

A factory worker processes cannabis flowers to make them ready for export in Kasese, Uganda
Big Money as UN Agency removes

marijuana from risky narcotics list

United Nations commission has to bolster international cooperation for group of drug policy organizations
A oted to reclassify cannabis as a ending drug abuse through two methods welcomed the changes, which they say
v
less dangerous drug, acknowledging the of intervention. The first restricts drug will give the international community
plant’s medical value and paving the way use, possession, sale, and distribution more incentive to invest in cannabis-
for further therapeutic use of the drug to the purposes of science or medicine, based medicines.
internationally. while the second sees collaboration The news which was welcomed
The 27-25 vote by the Vienna-based UN to intercept and demoralize drug worldwide by the millions of people who
Commission for Narcotic Drugs was traffickers. use cannabis for therapeutic purposes
based on 2019 recommendations by the The UN system for classifying and reflects the reality of the growing
World Health Organization (WHO), controlled drugs lists 250 substances market for cannabis-based medicinal
which provides technical expertise in four “schedules,” or categories, products, however, say the changes do
on drugs to the UN. The decision according to their health risks, dangers, not go far enough because cannabis will
removes cannabis and cannabis resin addictiveness, and medical value. remain listed under Schedule I along
from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Schedule IV, which is what cannabis has with more serious drugs like heroin and
Convention of Narcotics Drugs, where been listed as for decades, is reserved cocaine. This is despite the WHO finding
it was listed alongside drugs such as for the most dangerous substances that that cannabis was not as harmful as
heroin as having little to no medical or are of “extremely limited medical or other drugs listed in the same schedule.
therapeutic value. therapeutic value.” Cannabis and its derivatives are still
The United States, Canada, Mexico, Now, though, with this vote reclassifying subject to strict international controls,
and the United Kingdom were among cannabis as less dangerous, the UN and the commission’s vote against the
the countries that voted to approve the commission “has opened the door other four cannabis-related measures,
measure; countries including Russia, to recognizing the medicinal and including one to remove cannabis
China, Brazil, and Japan voted against it. therapeutic potential of the commonly- extracts and tinctures from the list of
Morocco was the only nation from the used but still largely illegal recreational substances most prone to abuse, shows
Middle East and North African region to drug” internationally, the UN said in a that broader international legalization is
support the reclassification. news item on the vote. still a long way off.
The 1961 convention was established A press release from an international But the trend is moving in that direction,

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