UN committee unexpectedly withholds marijuana scheduling recommendations
The committee’s recommendations for its international scheduling are still expected to go up for a vote in the CND in March
Friday, December 7, 2018
The World Health Organization (WHO) was expected to make recommendations about the international legal status of marijuana, which reform advocates hoped would include a call to deschedule the plant and free up member countries to pursue legalization. But in a surprise twist, a representative from the organization announced that WHO would be temporarily withholding the results of its cannabis assessment, even as it released recommendations on an opioid painkiller and synthetic cannabinoids. The marijuana recommendations are now expected to come out in January. Earlier this year, the WHO Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) released a pre-review of marijuana that included several positive, evidentiary findings.