It would seem to be a historic turning point in the medical-scientific field: after more than half a century in which the WHO has included cannabis among the narcotics considered dangerous and without any therapeutic value, now the matter seems to have (finally) practically been resolved.

Even though regulations on the subject are rapidly changing around the world and some countries have even liberalized it for some time now, in some cases even for recreational use, Cannabis is still officially identified internationally as a narcotic substance with all the consequences that this entails. Precisely for this reason, the request from the World Health Organization (WHO) to the UN to remove cannabis from the list of the most dangerous substances has caused quite a stir. The recommendation, which was sent to the Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres in the form of a letter, was signed by the Director General of the WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus , but was not made public. The content was revealed by some organizations that have been fighting for years on the

At the moment this does not contain anything definitive, but the recommendations made by an institution like the WHO now seem like a big step towards a new classification of cannabis at an international level . Specifically, the institution recommends removing the substance from Table IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and inserting it into Table III of the same convention, that of low-risk substances. A similar opinion had also been expressed in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration which however had referred to the 1961 UN Convention as an obstacle to reform. For this reason, the adoption of the WHO recommendations could open the doors to further reforms both in the USA and in the rest of the world.

The news was obviously greeted with jubilation by the various organizations active on this issue, even if opinions on its real significance are contrasting. In fact, there are those who see in this a decisive opening and those who instead underline how it is only a shifting of tables and not a cancellation of the name of the substance from the dangerous ones. In practice the result would be more political and symbolic than practical, because legalization for non-medical reasons (e.g. recreational use) would still technically violate international conventions.