On Thursday, March 17th 2016, during the 59th session of the Commission on Narcotic drugs, alongsind with activists coming from Spain, Belgium, the USA and the Czech Republic, we succeeded to put on the agenda the Cannabis Social Club item, as a regulating model not contradicting the framework of the three conventions related to drugs, and which can allow to develop policies regarding “non-medical and non-scientific” use of cannabis in a licit manner protecting as well the user’s health rights than the public health and the whole society; and allowing to reduce both prevalence of consumption of the substance and its potential related harms.
A social, ethic, human-scale and health-based model addressing the misuse, abuse and potential damages due to cannabis use while countering the unregulated growth of cannabis supply.
The conference happened in the conference room M0E79 of the United Nations headquarters in Vienna, where take place the meetings of the CND (Commission on Narcotic Drugs). It was organized in collaboration with the Spanish NGOs ICEERS, Fundación Renovatio and the plateform Regulación Responsable, the Italian Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty and the French Chanvre & Libertés-NORML France. Many delegates, diplomats and country representatives to the Commission, but also many NGO officer and United Nation agents attended the presentation and took part to the rich debate that followed, including out of the conference room.
« Introduction to Cannabis Social Clubs ».
During the conference were successively presented general notions defining and framing the concept of Cannabis social clubs (by Dr Constanza Sanchez, ICEERS and Joseba Del Valle, Fundacion Renovatio), and feed-backs of experiences led in Spain (Ramon Morcillo, Regulacion Responsable) and Belgium (Mafalda Pardal, Université de Gent). The conclusion tended to invite both government representatives and civil society or ground actors, and with the help of the political advocacy booklet (see below) named “Cannabis Social Club, a policy for the XXIst Century”, to facilitate the work for a legal implementation of such structures at different levels.
Advocacy document “Cannabis Social Club, une politique pour le XXIème siècle”.
Click on the image to learn more about that report.