section_path: Abstract
section_name: Abstract
paragraph_text: The removal of cannabis and cannabis resin from Schedule IV of the Single Convention on narcotic drugs is a change in international law that took place from 2019 to 2021, on the basis of a scientific assessment by the World Health Organization.
  
  Since the United Nations adoption of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961, cannabis and cannabis resin had been listed in Schedule IV, the most tightly restricted category, reserved for drugs that are "particularly liable to abuse and to produce ill effects" and whose "liability is not offset by substantial therapeutic advantages." Its initial placement in this category was not based on science, and no international scientific assessment had been undertaken until 2018. Following the December 2, 2020, vote by the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the removal of cannabis and cannabis resin from that Schedule entered into force in 2021. Since 2021, cannabis and cannabis resin remain listed in Schedule I of the Single Convention, alongside extracts and tinctures of cannabis.