Americans for Safe Access (ASA) has just learned that the World Health Organization’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) decided to move forward with a process that may reclassify medical cannabis under international law. The debate about medical cannabis at the ECDD has been stalled for years, but persistent pressure by ASA members, staff and international allies has resulted in historic movement towards rescheduling. The influential committee will hold a special session to discuss medical cannabis in eighteen months. 

When the United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) convenes in New York next Tuesday, delegates will be discussing global drug policy – including what to do about medical cannabis. This is a historic meeting, and the ramifications for national and international medical cannabis policy could be huge.

ASA would like to provide every delegate from the 180 nations represented with a groundbreaking report we prepared this year for the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs.  The 91-page report, which was peer-reviewed at our annual conference in March, answers important scientific questions about medical cannabis, and outlines a pathway towards international reform.

Pictured: ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer and an international delegation from France, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Jamaica delivering the report to the UNCND in March.

Help out by donating this week to get this report to every delegate at the UNGASS meeting. Our goal is to raise $5,000 to make it happen before next Tuesday!

You have an important job to do, if you are attending ASA’s National Medical Cannabis Unity Conference, March 18-22, at the Lowes Madison Hotel in Washington, DC. We will be finalizing a document at the conference that will be submitted to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND).  

The CND meeting in Vienna coincides with the ASA Unity Conference this year. Unity Conference participants will have the opportunity to weigh in on this review document on Sunday March 20^th in special stakeholder meetings. Allies within the CND will be calling on the CND, WHO, and UNGASS to use this Critical Review Preparation Document as a stepping-stone to move international cannabis policy forward.