section_path: History/Previous demands for rescheduling
section_name: Previous demands for rescheduling
paragraph_text: Previous demands for rescheduling
  
  There has long been some controversy over whether cannabis is "particularly liable to abuse and to produce ill effects" and whether that "liability is not offset by substantial therapeutic advantages", as required by Schedule IV criteria. Already in 1973, the Commentary on the Single Convention edited by UN Secretary-General pointed out that "should the results of the intensive research which is at the time of this writing being undertaken on the effects of so warrant, they could be deleted from Schedule IV, and these two drugs, as well as extracts and tinctures of cannabis, could be transferred from Schedule I to Schedule II."
  
  Since the discovery of the endocannabinoid receptor system in the late 1980s, which revolutionized the scientific understanding of the psychopharmacological effects of cannabis, and the important progresses in research related to the medical uses of the plant, questions as to the validity of the placement of cannabis and cannabis resin in Schedule IV increased, seen as representing "a historical anomaly should be reviewed at the earliest opportunity."
  
  In the United States, there has been a number of lawsuits over whether cannabis' Schedule IV status under the Single Convention requires total prohibition at the national level (such as NORML v. Ingersoll 497 F.2d 654 in 1974 or NORML v. DEA 559 F.2d 735 in 1977). In the 2000s, members of the European Parliament such as Kathalijne Buitenweg criticized the Single Convention's cannabis scheduling regime. In 2011, a Canadian Senate committee report noted that:
  
  "The argument for placing cannabis in was that it was widely abused. The WHO later found that cannabis could have medical applications after all, but the structure was already in place and no international action has since been taken to correct this anomaly."
  
  The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights emphasised in 2020 that the placement of cannabis in Schedule IV had not been validated by any scientific assessment.