ABSTRACT
Cannabis cultivation is prohibited under international law. The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs calls on signatory states to limit the cultivation of cannabis (alongside the coca bush and the opium poppy) and to destroy any existing illegal plants 2 . The 1988 UN Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances requires states to make cultivation of the three major “narcotic” plants 3 a criminal offence. Under this framework, drug crop eradication has been a key strategy in supply-reduction efforts in global drug control efforts. The 1998 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS), working under the slogan “A Drug Free World, We Can Do It”, reaffirmed “the need for a comprehensive approach towards the elimination of illicit narcotic crops” and welcomed “the United Nations Drug Control Program… with a view to eliminating or significantly reducing the illicit cultivation of the coca bush, the cannabis plant and the opium poppy by the year 2008” (UNGASS 1998, paragraphs 18 and 19). However, in 2008 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime admitted that “global trends indicate that the world has fallen short of these goals” (UNODC 2008a). With specific reference to cannabis, the 2008 World Drug Report implicated 172 countries and territories in cannabis production in 2007 (UNODC 2008b: 96), demonstrating the truly global nature of contemporary cannabis cultivation.
