The approval of Recommendation 5.1 had a slim majority in favor with 27 votes for, one abstention and 25 votes against.
The CND – the main drug policymaking body within the United Nations – turned down all five remaining recommendations.
The passage of Recommendation 5.1 carries broad symbolic significance for medical cannabis, as it could help boost medical cannabis legalization efforts around the globe now that the CND tacitly acknowledges the medical utility of the drug.
“The medical cannabis wave has accelerated in recent years already, but this will give it another boost,” Martin Jelsma, drugs and democracy program director at the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute, told Marijuana Business Daily.
“And for those countries that basically mirror the U.N. scheduling in their domestic legislation, it may lead to national descheduling and remove obstacles to use cannabis for medical and research purposes.”
The vote could encourage countries to reevaluate how cannabis is classified on their own lists of narcotic drugs, potentially paving the way for more research into medical marijuana and its use as a treatment for a variety of ailments and conditions.
What should not be expected is a loosening of international controls governing medical cannabis.
“While the move doesn’t totally free the plant from treaty control, it’s a giant step toward the normalization of cannabis in medicine above all but also in our societies generally,” independent researcher Kenzi Riboulet-Zemouli of CND Monitor told MJBizDaily.
“Decades of efforts have been necessary to remove cannabis from Schedule IV, with implications that will slowly but surely be seen over the next decades.”
Other recommendations
After approving Recommendation 5.1 on Wednesday, member states proceeded to vote on the remaining five proposals:
Recommendation 5.2 to move THC from the 1971 convention to the 1961 treaty failed to win the body’s approval, with 23 votes in favor, two abstentions and 28 votes against.
Recommendations 5.3 and 5.6 were tied to the approval of Recommendation 5.2. Because 5.2 was turned down, those two recommendations were rejected without a vote.
Recommendation 5.6 was about placing certain THC pharmaceutical preparations in Schedule III of the 1961 treaty.
Recommendation 5.4 – a proposal to delete “extracts and tinctures of cannabis” from the 1961 treaty – was rejected with 24 votes in favor, two abstentions and 27 against. But according to the WHO’s explanation of the recommendation, it is simply meant to eliminate a duplicity and does not seek “to decrease the level of control of any cannabis-related substance or narrow the scope of control.”
Recommendation 5.5 was rejected with six votes in favor, four abstentions and 43 against. This recommendation represents a missed opportunity to clarify the confusing legal situation for CBD preparations with traces of THC.
Final thoughts...
The historic vote in Vienna could have far-reaching implications for the global medical cannabis industry, ranging from regulatory oversight to scientific research into the plant and its use as a medicine.
So considering how difficult cannabis reform has been at the U.N. level, the removal from Schedule IV is a step forward that researchers and all the people that involve with cannabis, now they have a reason to celebrate.
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