UPDATE, 04 Dec 20: Both said yes!
At a meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), to be held in Vienna, 2-4 December 2020, the UN will vote on a WHO (World Health Organisation) recommendation to remove cannabis from its list of illegal narcotics. While largely symbolic, such a move would make it easier for nations everywhere to decriminalise and legalise cannabis, especially for medical use.
Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives will vote this week on the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act. The legalisation bill seeks to end cannabis prohibition by removing the plant from the list of federally-controlled substances. It will also expunge (delete from legal records) prior cannabis convictions, and establish a tax on sales to fund reinvestments into the communities most negatively affected by the failed war on drugs.
Here are our top 5 reasons why the US and the UN need to act now, and act decisively in favour of descheduling cannabis…
1. The WHO recognises the medical potential of cannabis
Whether the UN agrees with this or not, it still stands. Only by removing the stigma of illegality around cannabis can we properly research and quantify the medical benefits of cannabis.
2. We need hemp to be truly liberated
The USA federally decriminalized hemp in 2018, one of Presidents Trump’s most important and most positive legacies. But because law enforcement often has too much time on their hands, in the US (and elsewhere, including Ireland), they often harass hemp producers and retailers, confiscating goods to see if they contain more than 0.2-0.3% THC, the psychoactive chemical in cannabis, which is a kind of hemp. By removing this pathetic obstacle, hemp can be cultivated and processed into products such as CBD and foods, without the constant threat of police bullshit.
3. It’s a race and colonialism issue
Nobody disagrees that cannabis prohibition has been used to target minorities, in the US and elsewhere. From Reefer Madness (read more here) in the 1930s to America’s current prison population, Black and Hispanic Americans have been disproportionately targeted and imprisoned for cannabis violations. This needs to stop. The so-called ‘war on drugs’ was a war on non-whites; a racist, neo-colonialist failure.
4. Hemp can stop climate change, stupid!
As a race, we can be stupid. So we’ll leave the creation of a carbon-neutral society until it’s too late. The mass-planting of hemp can buy us time. By absorbing 10 tonnes of CO2 per acre grown, hemp is the plant that can stop climate change until we build a carbon-neutral economy. This is the key to our Hempoffset.com project, coming soon!
5. The bloody pandemic
Not only can full cannabis/hemp legalisation help get us through the pandemic with our sanity and livers intact, but it can also help build new economies, generate new tax revenue streams and offer new ways to build sustainable futures.
The time is now. Contact your political representatives and tell them that you want cannabis decriminalized in the US and the UN. Also share this post so others can do the same. Thanks! Let’s do this!
Update, 04/12/20: Both the US and UN proposals were passed, in favour of cannabis liberalisation. This is huge! Read the CNN report here: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/04/business/cannabis-more-act-house-vote/index.html
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Has researched hemp, climate change for over twenty years. Publishes e-commerce magazine site with a growing global audience.
January 2021: Planning a new business model to enable mass planting of hemp through easy carbon offsetting at Hempoffset.com.
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