ABSTRACT
Cities play an important role in the implementation of national cannabis policies. However, local authorities are constrained by international obligations stemming from the UN drug control conventions, which restrict national governments’ room for maneuver, particularly regarding the supply of cannabis. A certain leniency towards cannabis use has developed in Europe since the 1970s, and local authorities were often left to manage the “grey areas” that resulted from ambiguities and loopholes in national drug legislation, in the absence of comprehensive regulation of recreational cannabis markets. While the cannabis policy landscape in the Americas is evolving rapidly, at the national and international level, European cannabis policy remains in a deadlock. In several countries in Europe, therefore, local authorities are searching for tools and mechanisms to regulate their local recreational cannabis markets. Given this tension, the future may well be in increased “local customization” of policies, allowing locally-adapted regulation to fit under more general national and international umbrella legislation and policies. In this way, change can be facilitated at the local level, while avoiding the need for complete national (or international) consensus on the best way to manage recreational cannabis markets.
