U.N. Reclassifies Cannabis as a Less Dangerous Drug

Isabella Kwai, writing for The New York Times:

A United Nations commission voted on Wednesday to remove cannabis for medicinal purposes from a category of the world’s most dangerous drugs, a highly anticipated and long-delayed decision that could clear the way for an expansion of marijuana research and medical use.

The vote by the Commission for Narcotic Drugs, which is based in Vienna and includes 53 member states, considered a series of recommendations from the World Health Organization on reclassifying cannabis and its derivatives. But attention centered on a key recommendation to remove cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs — where it was listed alongside dangerous and highly addictive opioids like heroin.

Experts say that the vote will have no immediate impact on loosening international controls because governments will still have jurisdiction over how to classify cannabis. But many countries look to global conventions for guidance, and United Nations recognition is a symbolic win for advocates of drug policy change who say that international law is out of date.

Although this is essentially a symbolic gesture, it’s still a huge sign of progress and good things to come. Now that the United Nations has made this move, we can expect to see more countries relax their approach to cannabis—and hopefully other drugs as well.

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Archaeologists Find Evidence of Ancient Ceremonial Datura Use in Californian Caves

David Shultz, writing for Science Magazine:

With recurring zigzags, spirals, and other simple geometric patterns, ancient rock art is sometimes surprisingly similar across the globe. One hypothesis is that the artists were all using psychoactive compounds, which nudged the brain toward certain patterns. Now, a new find from a roughly 500-year-old cave used by Native Americans suggests such compounds may indeed have been an important component of their rock art. But the art itself may not have depicted the experience of tripping. […]

The site of the discovery is Pinwheel Cave in Southern California, about 80 kilometers northeast of Santa Barbara. The cave gets its name for a large, red, pinwheel-shaped drawing on its ceiling; some archaeologists have hypothesized it represents a genus of the psychoactive flower Datura. The flower contains the alkaloids scopolamine and atropine, which are considered an entheogen—a psychoactive compound used in a spiritual context. The Chumash people of Southern California called the experiences triggered by ingesting Datura “sacred dreams,” according to Jim Adams, a pharmacologist at the University of Southern California who spent 14 years studying sacred Chumash Datura ceremonies.

When David Robinson, an archaeologist at the University of Central Lancashire, and his colleagues began to excavate the site in 2007, they found chewed remnants of plant materials—also known as quids—pushed into cracks in the ceiling of the cave. Initial attempts to extract DNA from the quids came up short. But now, a combination of new chemical analyses and electron microscopy has positively identified the plant as Datura, the team reports today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “I was like, ‘Wow, we found the smoking gun of hallucinogens at a rock art site,’” Robinson says.

Californians have been tripping for a long, long time.

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Vancouver Just Voted to Decriminalize All Drugs

Rachel Browne, writing for VICE:

Vancouver city council unimously [sic] voted on Wednesday to proceed with a plan to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of all illicit drugs—from heroin to meth—as a way to help curb the province’s worsening overdose crisis that has been exacerbated by the pandemic and an increasingly toxic street supply.

Pending approval from the federal government, the city would become the first in Canada to decriminalize illicit substances, and comes shortly after Oregon became the first U.S. state to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of all drugs.

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Mexican Senate Passes Bill to Legalize Marijuana Nationwide

Tom Angell, writing for Marijuana Moment:

Mexico’s Senate approved a bill to legalize marijuana nationally on Thursday.

Before it can become law it must also be passed by the other body of the country’s Congress, the Chamber of Deputies.

The legislation, which was circulated in draft form earlier this month, would establish a regulated cannabis market in Mexico, allowing adults 18 and older to purchase and possess up to 28 grams of marijuana and cultivate up to six plants for personal use.

Well this is fucking huge news! Pretty soon the U.S. will be surrounded on both sides by countries that have legalized cannabis. Will we follow suit anytime soon?

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An Amendment to Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms in New Jersey Gets Snuck Into a Cannabis Decrim Bill

Sam Wood, writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer:

A key committee in the New Jersey Senate on Thursday unanimously approved a bill to remove criminal penalties for possession of up to six ounces of marijuana.

In a surprise move, an unidentified senator added an amendment to the bill to downgrade penalties for possessing up to an ounce of psilocybin, better known as hallucinogenic “magic mushrooms."

The vote marked the first time any marijuana decriminalization bill had been considered, let alone passed, in the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.

The bill, S 2535, with its mushroom amendment, was approved without debate or discussion.

Now this is the kind of sneaky politics I can get behind. More of this, please!

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