The United Nations (UN) Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) voted this week to ban the marijuana component hexahydrocannabinol (HHC) under an international treaty, with every country present except the United States casting a vote in favor of placing the substance under Schedule II of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.
The U.S., for its part, abstained. In a statement afterward, officials said they were “unable to vote” on the HHC proposal as well as another being voted on that placed the drug carisoprodol under Schedule IV.
“While the United States supports the use of the international scheduling system to make scientifically-informed decisions about international drug control, we were unable to vote on the proposals,” the statement said. “Nevertheless, both of these substances are already controlled in the United States, at levels that will allow the United States to meet its international obligations arising from the CND’s decisions today.”
The statement gave no further information explaining why the U.S. was unable to cast those votes.
CND also voted to regulate four other non-cannabis compounds under international law.
In a social media post, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) called the actions “critical decisions on the control of harmful substances.”
“These decisions shape drug policies, law enforcement and public health worldwide,” the body said.
As explained by a World Health Organization (WHO) representative ahead of the vote, the psychoactive cannabinoid HHC “is found in trace amounts” in cannabis plants “but is usually synthesized from cannabidiol.” It’s sometimes sprayed on cannabis flowers that are low in THC, as its effects are “similar to those produced by delta-9 THC,” the official said.
In the U.S., the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) says HHC is not a naturally occurring cannabinoid. In a 2023 letter, Terrance Boos, chief of DEA’s Drug and Chemical Evaluation Section, wrote that HHC “does not occur naturally in the cannabis plant and can only be obtained synthetically, and therefore does not fall under the definition of hemp.”
WHO has not previously reviewed the substance, nor was it previously under international control.
“Information was brought to the attention of WHO that the substance is manufactured clandestinely, poses a risk to public health and has no recognized therapeutic use,” the organization said in a recommendation in support of the international scheduling action.
WHO added that HHC has been “analytically confirmed in people driving under the influence of drugs and in clinical admissions for drug intoxication in adults and children in multiple countries, including cases in which hexahydrocannabinol was confirmed to be the only substance involved.”
The countries voting to put HHC under Schedule II of the international treaty were Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Lithuania, Malta, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Hungary, Peru, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Trinidad, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, Tanzania, Uruguay and Zimbabwe.
Separately, a forthcoming review from WHO on coca leaf—from which cocaine is derived—has advocates watching for the possible rescheduling of the leaves.
As reported by Filter, the World Health Organization has three likely options before it: conclude that the coca leaf should remain in Schedule I, recommend transfer to the less-restricted Schedule II or recommend the removal of coca from the treaty schedules altogether.
Separately at UN, the group’s High Commissioner for Human Rights late last year called on the international community to move away from punitive, criminal drug policies, saying that the global war on drugs “has failed, completely and utterly.”
Those comments comments come on the heels of a statement earlier last year from UN special rapporteurs, experts and working groups earlier that asserted the drug war “has resulted in a range of serious human rights violations, as documented by a number of UN human rights experts over the years.”
The statement pointed, for example, to what it called a “landmark report” published by the UN special rapporteur on human rights that encouraged nations to abandon the criminal war on drugs and instead adopt harm-reduction policies—such as decriminalization, supervised consumption sites, drug checking and widespread availability of overdose reversal drugs like naloxone—while also moving toward “alternative regulatory approaches” for currently controlled substances.
In 2023, meanwhile 19 Latin American and Caribbean nations issued a joint statement acknowledging the need to rethink the global war on drugs and instead focus on “life, peace and development” within the region.
A separate UN special rapporteurs report said that “the ‘war on drugs’ may be understood to a significant extent as a war on people.”
“Its impact has been greatest on those who live in poverty,” they said, “and it frequently overlaps with discrimination directed at marginalised groups, minorities and Indigenous Peoples.”
In 2019, the UN Chief Executives Board (CEB), which represents 31 UN agencies including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), adopted a position stipulating that member states should pursue science-based, health-oriented drug policies—namely decriminalization.
Despite shifting attitudes at the state and local levels on some drugs in the U.S., the country is still the leading global financier of international drug war efforts.
A report published last year by two organizations critical of the war on drugs found that $13 billion in U.S. taxpayer money has gone to fund worldwide counternarcotics activities since 2015, often coming at the expense of efforts to end global poverty while at the same time contributing to international human rights violations and environmental harms.
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