The Beckley Foundation Global Cannabis Commission

The United Nations Strategic Drug Policy Review

In 1998, the international community agreed a 10-year programme of activity for the control of illegal drug use and markets. These agreements were made at a United Nations General Assembly Special Session held in New York in June of that year, and a commitment was made to a review of progress in 2008. At the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna in March 2007, it was agreed that 2008 would be the year governments receive all relevant data on the progress made against the objectives agreed in 1998, and that a high-level political meeting would be held in the spring of 2009 to agree the way forward. Clearly, the international community will not be able to report unequivocal success in anti-drug programmes, and there is increasing disagreement between governments on the appropriate policies to adopt. It is therefore essential that the process of review in 2008 be as transparent as possible, and that experts from the field have the maximum opportunity to engage with the government officials and politicians who will ultimately decide on future directions.

The Global Cannabis Commission

The Cannabis Commission report will be authored by an international group of academics who have been commissioned by the Beckley Foundation to produce a report on cannabis policy in a global perspective. The report will be produced by summer 2008, in time to be taken into account in the global debate on drug policies in connection with the evaluation in spring 2009 of the ten-year global drug strategy adopted at the UNGASS (United Nations General Assembly Special Session) in 1998.

The Commission's report will address four major topics relevant to a reconsideration of cannabis policies:

•  An up-to-the-minute review of what is known about the health consequences of cannabis use , and its public health significance. This will include harms to physical and mental health, performance effects such as on driving, effects at different potencies, and comparisons of harms between cannabis and other drugs – tobacco, alcohol, opiates, etc.

Chapter Captain: Prof. Wayne Hall.

•  A review of the evidence on the effects of the current system of prohibition and control in a global perspective, including: the size and organization of the illicit cannabis market; the costs and effectiveness of efforts to eliminate the market through police action and the criminal justice system; the effects of criminalization on users and their families; successes, failures and problems of enforcement; side effects; actual practice vs. theory in the system.

Chapter Captain: Prof. Peter Reuter.

•  A review of the effects of policy initiatives at national and sub-national levels of reform within the international prohibition system intended to mitigate adverse effects, including initiatives to decriminalize cannabis possession, to reduce penalties for use or possession, to divert to treatment or other handling, and to license and tolerate, such as that found in the Dutch coffee shop system. The review will describe the diverse initiatives in concrete terms, and summarize what evidence is available on the effects of each on amount and patterns of use and of harm.

Chapter Captains: Profs. Simon Lenton & Benedikt Fischer.

•  A consideration of the potential means of altering the present international convention status of cannabis, to allow controlled availability for adult use in national or sub-national regulatory regimes. The alternatives considered will include rescheduling of cannabis under the 1961 Convention, amendment of the Convention, and adoption of a new Convention on cannabis on the model of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. This will be a fairly detailed consideration of the possible alternative paths, with their pluses and minuses. Chapter Captain: Prof. Robin Room .

The report will also contain an introduction charting the history of cannabis use and a concluding chapter outlining the commissioners final recommendations.

Having written the report, we are proposing to have a group of International Notables who will be the Commissioners and contribute to the conclusions and recommendations, thereby giving the recommendations added weight.

We intend to hold a seminar to present the final report to an invited group of academics, policymakers and Non Governmental Organisations. This meeting will take place in September 2008. The purpose of the seminar will be to consider the implications of the report for national and international drug control policy, and agree procedures for the dissemination and promotion of its findings to national governments and international agencies.

Following this discussion and refinement of the report, we hope to have it published to ensure that its impact is as widespread as possible. Given the report's multi-disciplinary nature, we expect it to be of professional interest not only to Drug Policy analysts, but also to toxicologists and physiologists, mental health practitioners, public health experts, and experts in public policy and international law amongst others, as well as to a significant proportion of the general population, both in the UK and abroad, with an interest in the issue. We will disseminate and promote the report following its publication, with the aim of maximising interest and awareness in the political and academic communities. With the aid of a publisher's expertise, we would also like to promote the report amongst the general population.

We believe that this report and the manner in which it has been developed could serve as a paradigm for the development of future evidence-based drug policies. We therefore hope that its analysis and its findings will reach as large an audience as possible, so that it might bring about the necessary and beneficial changes that have been so long ignored.

This project has been convened by Amanda Neidpath,
Director of the Beckley Foundation