section_path: History/Inclusion in Schedule IV
section_name: Inclusion in Schedule IV
paragraph_text: Inclusion in Schedule IV
  
  Although treaties preceding the Single Convention "contained the first provisions related to cannabis prohibiting the export of cannabis resin to countries that prohibited its use, however, no international attempts were made to control the traditional use of cannabis."
  
  In 1961, the UN Economic and Social Council convened a Plenipotentiary Conference of 73 nations for the negotiation and adoption of the Single convention on narcotic drugs. That meeting was known as the United Nations Conference on Narcotic Drugs.
  
  Under Article 3 of the Single Convention, the World Health Organization is mandated with assessing substances for their inclusion or move in, or withdrawal from the Schedules of the international drug control conventions. Within the WHO, the Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (or ECDD, previously called Expert Committee on "Habit-forming Drugs" and on "Drugs Liable to Produce Addiction") is tasked with the scientific evidence-based assessment of substances. But even before the Single Convention, the committee had this mandate under previous drug control treaties.
  
  The ECDD first included cannabis on its agenda at its 3rd meeting (1952), and then again at its 4th (1953), 5th (1954), and 11th (1960) meetings, before the plenipotentiary conference was convened. They repeatedly concluded that "there is no justification for the medical use of cannabis preparations" and that "there should be an extension of the effort towards the abolition of cannabis from all legitimate medical practice." The assessments have been criticized for their lack of scientific methodology, and reliance on doubtful sources such as reports from South African police at times of the apartheid regime. On the basis of the conclusions drawn by the ECDD, the United Nations Conference on Narcotic Drugs decided to list cannabis and cannabis resin in Schedules I and IV, while listing "extracts and tinctures" only in Schedule I.
  
  In 1970, a letter between U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health Roger O. Egeberg and U.S. congressman Harley O. Staggers suggests that many stakeholders saw the classification in Schedule I and IV of the convention as provisional:
  
  "Some question has been raised whether the use of the plant itself produces "severe psychological or physical dependence" as required by a schedule I or even schedule II criterion. Since there is still a considerable void in our knowledge of the plant and effects of the active drug contained in it, our recommendation is that marijuana be retained within schedule I at least until the completion of certain studies now underway to resolve the issue."
  
  The "certain studies" refers to the anticipated findings of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. The Commission released a 1972 report favoring decriminalization. However, findings of the commission had no impact on the international scheduling of cannabis.