UN removes marijuana from list of most dangerous drugs; Brazil...

In a decision that is being considered historic, the UN approved a recommendation to reclassify marijuana and thus make room for its broader medical use. The new classification removes the product from a list of more dangerous narcotics, such as heroin. But the remaining resolutions proposed to guarantee greater freedom of use have not been passed.

Brazil voted against the proposal, as did regimes like China, Egypt, Russia or Turkey.

In Latin America, the governments of Uruguay, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico were favorable, in addition to the USA, Canada and much of Europe.

The WHO proposal had been submitted in 2019. But strong resistance was trying to prevent the topic from even being the vote. When the vote took place on Wednesday, 27 countries voted for reclassification and 25 were against it. There was also an abstention.

For Steve Rolles, political analyst at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, the move represents the end of a more prohibitive classification and “is the recognition that (marijuana) has medical use”. “This will facilitate access to medicines and research,” he said. For him, the decision corrects a “historical error”, taken 60 years ago.

The decision was made by the UN Commission on Narcotics, made up of 53 countries. A recommendation had been made by WHO in this regard. But it needed to go through a vote in the body that administers the topic.

In practice, the list of most dangerous drugs is Annex IV to the Narcotic Drugs Convention of 1961 and it is from that list that marijuana was removed.

There is no direct implication for marijuana liberalization and, even among diplomats, the debate was not one of automatically facilitating the sale of the product. The international treaty grants each country full sovereignty to decide how to deal with marijuana.

Today, in fact, about 40 countries already recognize the medical use of marijuana. But the UN seal, in the view of experts, will open the possibility for other governments to take the same path.

In addition, the vote was received as a first victory by groups that insist that the war on drugs has failed.