Legal status of cannabis for personal use in different European countries

The legal status of cannabis for personal use is one of the most controversial policy issues in the European Union. Although cannabis is a classified narcotic drug placed under control by the United Nations and by all EU Member States, the measures adopted to control it at national level vary considerably, as shown in the table below.

Cannabis extracts — marijuana, hashish and cannabis oil — are classified as narcotic drugs under both Schedules I and IV of the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Art. 36 requests State Parties to “adopt such measures as will ensure that …possession… of drugs contrary to the provisions of this Convention… shall be punishable offences when committed intentionally...”. The active principles of cannabis, the cannabinoids THC and specifically dronabinol (delta-9-THC), are classified as psychotropic substances under Schedules I and II respectively of the 1971 United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Art 22 of this echoes the terms of the 1961 Convention above, stating that “each Party shall treat as a punishable offence, when committed intentionally, any action contrary to a law or regulation adopted in pursuance of its obligations under this Convention… “. Finally, the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic of 1988, Art. 3 requests establishment of a criminal offence for possession of drugs for the purposes of trafficking (Art. 3.1(a)(iii)), and for the possession for personal consumption (Art.3.2). This latter has been the subject of a wide range of interpretations and analyses; see ELDD’s Legal Reports for example the EMCDDA thematic paper “Illicit drug use in the EU: legislative approaches”, section 1, and Chapter 7 of A Cannabis Reader, EMCDDA Monograph 8; Cannabis Control in Europe.

Comments

#1. Posted by Tom Speed on January 14, 2012

“shall be punishable offences when committed intentionally”

Under what authority????

http://www.lysanderspooner.org/VicesAreNotCrimes.htm
“It is a natural impossibility that a government should have a right to punish men for their vices; because it is impossible that a government should have any rights, except such as the individuals composing it had previously had, as individuals.

They could not delegate to a government any rights which they did not themselves possess. They could not contribute to the government any rights, except such as they themselves possessed as individuals.

Now, nobody but a fool or an impostor pretends that he, as an individual, has a right to punish other men for their vices. But anybody and everybody have a natural right, as individuals, to punish other men for their crimes; for everybody has a natural right, not only to defend his own person and property against aggressors, but also to go to the assistance and defence of everybody else, whose person or property is invaded.

The natural right of each individual to defend his own person and property against an aggressor, and to go to the assistance and defence of every one else whose person or property is invaded, is a right without which men could not exist on the earth. And government has no rightful existence, except in so far as it embodies, and is limited by, this natural right of individuals.

But the idea that each man has a natural right to decide what are virtues, and what are vices—- that is, what contributes to that neighbors happiness, and what do not—- and to punish him for all that do not contribute to it; is what no one ever had the impudence or folly to assert.

It is only those who claim that government has some rightful power, which no individual or individuals ever did, or could, delegate to it, that claim that government has any rightful power to punish vices.”