With the global cannabis industry abuzz over what appears to be imminent rescheduling of cannabis in the United States to a less restrictive controlled substance, due to President Trump’s Executive Order, there are still several practicalities to implement. One of the issues in question is tracking patient data.
Last month, the President of the United States (POTUS) decreed to reschedule cannabis from its most restrictive category for controlled substances, Schedule I, to the less restrictive Schedule III, and tasked United States Attorney General Pam Bondi with making it happen.
Cannabis & Tech Today reached out to the United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) to elicit its response to this action.
U.S. Schedule I Vs. U.N. Schedule I
According to the U.N.’s scheduling system, whose scheduling ranks for controlled substances are transposed from the United States’, the removal of cannabis and cannabis resin from Schedule IV of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs was a change in international law that took place from 2019 to 2021, following a World Health Organization recommendation based on its medical potential. As this was during the height of the pandemic, the world had other things to think about.
Cannabis is currently placed in the less restrictive Schedule I of the Convention.
The INCB Does Not Approve Adult Use
When asked for the INCB’s reaction to the United States’ Commander-In-Chief attempting to follow suit with federal rescheduling five years later via an executive order to reclassify cannabis, the U.N. body was on board, with caveats excluding approval for adult use (aka recreational use).
“The INCB Board has taken note of the Executive Order of the U.S. President that would reschedule cannabis to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act,” said a representative from the INCB Secretariat, via email. “In line with the international drug control conventions and its longstanding position, INCB highlights that States parties should limit the use of cannabis to medical and scientific purposes.”
Suggested Governmental Framework
The email continued with a governmental framework for this outcome.
“Governments that wish to establish access schemes to allow for medical or scientific uses of cannabis should establish the set of control measures found in the Convention, including the establishment of a national cannabis agency to control, supervise, and license the cultivation of cannabis crops; the designation of the areas in which cultivation is permitted; and the licensing of cultivators.
“Governments should: ensure that such programmes do not result in the de facto legalization of cannabis for non-medical purposes; work to prohibit the unauthorized cultivation of cannabis plants and seize and destroy illicit crops; and adopt such measures as may be necessary to prevent the misuse of, and illicit traffic in, cannabis leaves.”
Medical Use The Convention aims at ensuring that stocks of cannabis produced for medical uses are reserved for the patients for whom they are prescribed, and do not get diverted into unregulated channels.
Will Tracking of MMJ Violate HIPAA?
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) set of national standards for the protection of certain health information, known as the Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information (aka the “Privacy Rule”) will have to be analyzed to implement a nascent legal framework to make gathering cannabis patients’ data compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (aka “HIPAA” laws) and still be in accordance with the mandate of the Convention.
HHS issued the Privacy Rule to implement the requirement of HIPAA. The INCB delved into its disclosure requirements.
“Governments are also recommended to monitor and evaluate the effects of the programmes; to collect data on the number of patients who use cannabinoids, the medical conditions for which they use them, patient and clinician assessments of their benefits, and rates of adverse events; and to monitor the extent of diversion to non-medical use, and in particular their diversion for use by minors.”
Patients in the U.S. who want access to medical cannabis might not want to disclose their use, despite the INCB’s suggestion.
Adult Use Violates the Treaty
Lastly, the INCB stated that while the rescheduling of cannabis in the United States would not appear to contravene the control requirements found in the U.N. conventions, the Board highlights “that measures permitting the non-medical use of cannabis are inconsistent with the provisions of the international drug control conventions.”
U.N. Peacekeepers are not tasked with patrolling U.S. dispensaries looking for violators of the Convention. The INCB’s clarification of its position on recreational cannabis use is akin to a rubber stamp and a finger wag in the U.S.’s direction.
