Medicinal properties of cannabis recognized by the UN

The UN recognized the medicinal properties of cannabis in a vote this Wednesday in Vienna by the Narcotic Drugs Commission, the United Nations’ executive agency on drug policy.

A simple majority of the 53 States of the Narcotics Commission decided to remove cannabis and its resin from List IV of the 1961 Drug Convention, meaning that the medical utility of this plant is now officially recognized.

Recreational use will continue to be banned under international law, the Spanish news agency Efe said.

Almost all states in the European Union, except Hungary, and many states in America represented a simple majority of 27 votes to approve the change, one of the most important in the field of drugs in recent decades, while most countries in Asia and Africa was opposed, according to Efe.

In the 1961 Drug Convention, cannabis is classified in lists I and IV, the latter reserved for the most dangerous drugs under the most rigorous control, such as heroin, and to which little medicinal value is attributed.

This change will facilitate research into cannabis, which has active ingredients that have shown promising results in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, chronic pain and cancer.

The vote came almost two years after an opinion by the World Health Organization (WHO) that recognized the medical usefulness of cannabis and recommended that it be removed from list IV.

At the same time, he proposed to keep cannabis on List I, where narcotics are under international control due to their addictive nature, but accessible for medical activities, a situation in which other narcotics, such as morphine, are found, Efe said.

The recommendation now adopted was based on the first WHO critical study on cannabis, the most popular drug in the world, with about 200 million consumers, according to UN estimates.

About 50 countries have launched different medical cannabis programs and this United Nations decision is expected to promote such policies as well as research with the plant, says Efe.

In Portugal, the legalization of the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes was approved in June 2018 and the law came into force on February 1, 2019. Until now, medical research with cannabis was possible on a limited basis, since its inclusion in List IV acted as a brake on many laboratories due to the restrictions and different legal criteria applied in each country.