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Cannabis and international criminology: tolerance, aversion, and legal technical assistance

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Abstract

For decades, developing countries have faced international pressure to adopt the techniques and tactics consistent with the drug war. These have had profound and adverse consequences. While cannabis prohibition and drug control generally are topics that lend themselves to established comparative studies, engaging cannabis as a substantive topic engages numerous aspects of criminal justice systems. In this paper, we link cannabis to concepts related to recent formulations of international criminology. Next, we outline how the history of cannabis prohibition requires adopting a more critical global lens and consider the role of legal technical assistance to support countries renegotiating cannabis control in the twenty-first century. Beyond the formal tools and informal techniques commonly used within legal technical assistance, we argue expanding tolerance can disrupt the tendency for reform to expand social control. While embracing tolerance may serve as an antidote to some penal modalities, this must be combined with policies that regulate the aversion many feel toward cannabis and people who use it. Harm reduction provides a useful frame to combine these concepts and orient critical models of international criminology.

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Notes

  1. See UNCEBC, Summary of deliberations (2019), https://www.unsceb.org/CEBPublicFiles/CEB-2018-2-SoD.pdf (last visited Jun 17, 2019).

  2. For example, “…through the delivery of aid, some countries have tried to export their preferred drug control policies…The approaches adopted in many aid agreements seem to be insulated from the advances in the global debate about alternative drug policies and harm reduction and remains heavily focused on law enforcement.” See http://fileserver.idpc.net/library/MDLE-6-Drug-markets-security-and-foreign-aid.pdf

  3. See https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2014/feb/03/us-war-on-drugs-impact-in-latin-american

  4. For example, data drawn from Europol, Interpol, UNPol, the ICTY, ICTR, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and the ICC are certainly of interest. For a useful overview see http://www.maclc.mk/Upload/Documents/J.%20Winterdyk.pdf. Retrieved March 30, 2022.

  5. In the U.S. state of Virginia, efforts are underway to change the smell of cannabis from a primary offense to a secondary offense. This would mean state police in Virginia could not stop someone because they reported smelling cannabis. See https://www.wvtf.org/news/2020-09-30/pretext-stops-related-to-the-smell-of-marijuana-may-soon-be-a-thing-of-the-past. In 2020, the Independent Office of Police Complaints (IOPC) upheld the complaint of a Black male cyclist who was stopped and searched in Euston, London, stating police officers should not stop and search people because they smell like drugs. https://www.vice.com/en/article/ep4wva/uk-police-cant-search-just-because-you-smell-of-weed-watchdog-says. Retrieved February 27, 2022.

  6. Private communication from E. Avdatek, Juridisch adviseur received on October 26, 2021.

  7. See British Parliament, Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, April 10, 1891. See https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1891/apr/10/the-indian-opium-traffic#S3V0352P0_18910410_HOC_145 [Last accessed September 1, 2021].

  8. See https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/12/1079132 [Last accessed September 1, 2021].

  9. As explored elsewhere another effort to control cannabis is based on updating tactics from older opponents of drug policy reform. Today a new group is building on the international linkages of the past. Like the “Old Prohibitionists,” who opposed drug policy reform in earlier eras, the “New Prohibitionists” use problematic research to attempt to limit cannabis liberalization. These individuals and groups seek to preserve prohibitionist policies, while denying or downplaying the profound costs associated with maintaining them. Many are based in the U.S., which has long been a key partner in prohibition. See Heidt and Wheeldon (2021).

  10. There is some concern that the US may adopt this approach under the Biden Administration by federally decriminalizing cannabis in the U.S. by expanding coercive care. See https://filtermag.org/joe-biden-forced-drug-treatment/. Retrieved March 30, 2022.

  11. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/01/amsterdam-considers-banning-cannabis-tourists-from-its-coffee-shops

  12. One option would be to withdraw from the drug conventions and rejoin them with reservations. Another is to participate in a coordinated international effort to convince the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to reschedule cannabis. See Eliason and Howse (2019).

  13. See https://www.vice.com/en/article/akvpe4/race-drug-arrests-canada

  14. See https://chscp.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/03.Child-Q-PUBLISHED-14-March-22.pdf [Last accessed June 5, 2022].

  15. See https://www.hri.global/what-is-harm-reduction. Retrieved March 31, 2022.

  16. See https://www.gov.uk/government/news/148-million-to-cut-drugs-crime. Retrieved March 30, 2022.

  17. As we have explored in previous work, this coercion takes a variety of forms. See Heidt and Wheeldon (2023) and Wheeldon and Heidt (2023).

  18. See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/01/amsterdam-considers-banning-cannabis-tourists-from-its-coffee-shops

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  1. University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Johannes Wheeldon

  2. University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, BC, Canada

    Jon Heidt

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Johannes drafted and revised the manuscript. Jon reviewed and edited the manuscript.

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Wheeldon, J., Heidt, J. Cannabis and international criminology: tolerance, aversion, and legal technical assistance. Crime Law Soc Change (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-023-10135-5

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