Cannabis and international law

This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (February 2021)

The status of cannabis in international law is a century-old history. Cannabis reform at the international level refers, in the 20th century, to efforts to increase restrictions on cannabis use under international treaties; in the 21st century, generally to efforts to ease or update such restrictions.

The first reference to cannabis appeared in an international treaty in 1925, with its mention in the second "International Convention relating to Dangerous Drugs." This addition was not an initiative of the United States^[1][2] but rather the result of "a triangulation between various State interests and blocs",^[3] chiefly, Egypt, South Africa, and Italy.^[4][5] From 1961 to 2020, cannabis and haschich were listed in Schedule IV, the most restrictive category of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the main treaty establishing legal dispositions on cannabis in international law. It was removed in 2020 after a scientific assessment by the World Health Organization and a narrow vote at the United Nations drug commission.