Cannabis stakeholders and activists are drawing positive energy from four days of hearings during which doctors, patients, and researchers presented analysis and outlined the benefits of cannabis before the World Health Organization (WHO).
The WHO convened a special 40th meeting of its Expert Committee entirely dedicated to cannabis for the first time. The meeting was held in Geneva.
“In the year of its 70th birthday, the World Health Organization is finally taking steps to repair an injustice that it co-created: the affirmation that cannabis had no medical value, based on biased scientific processes,” the Foundation for Alternative Approaches to Addiction (FAAAT), said in a statement.
FAAAT is a transnational non-governmental, non-partisan and non-profit organization working on the issue of addiction, controlled drugs, and plant or substances liable to produce addiction. From Barcelona, Geneva, New-York, Paris and Vienna, FAAAT centralizes the collaboration of a global network of experts.
FAAAT has been pressuring the United Nations system to strengthen scientific methodology and comprehensiveness of data regarding medical cannabis and its derivatives since 2009.
WHO conclusions are likely to change international law and impact home policies globally.
Testimony from MDs, patients, researchers, and international institutions known for their critical views over medicinal cannabis such as the INCB (International Narcotics Control Board) were present.
The outcome of their work will not be known for several weeks, and formally presented to all the countries of the United Nations during December’s reconvened session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.