Introduction

Since the early 20th century, cannabis has been included in a series of global conventions and agreements, which continue to serve as the cornerstone of contemporary international control approaches. Ostensibly, the raisons d’etre of such controls are to regulate the manufacture, distribution, supply and use of designated substances, to ensure controlled access for medical and research purposes and to prevent problems arising from drug use. Such developments at a supranational level in some respects reflect adaptation to the limitations of individual sovereign states in responding to identified problems, with increased interconnectedness and interweaving of transportation and trade across geopolitical regions under globalizing conditions necessitating the coordination of responses and collaboration with others.

However, the formation and actualization of this international drug control system is subject to varying interpretations. For some, control at this level is characterized as a rigid ‘prohibition regime’ (Bewley-Taylor and Jelsma, 2012: 4) in which a heavily US-influenced ‘global order’ of drugs control (Eligh, 2019) places pressure on nation states to strictly adhere to criminalized approaches while criticizing those who dare to ‘breach’ the dominant approach (Bewley-Taylor and Jelsma, 2012). However, in recent years, this perspective has faced growing criticism for failing to recognize the rather more complex role of different states in the formation of multilateral drug control agreements, as well as the considerable diversity that international regulatory systems afford to national and local policy actors in shaping cannabis control (see Mills, 2003; Windle, 2013; Collins, 2020). Consequently, it has been argued that a more appropriate way of conceptualizing control at a global level is as a ‘complex regulatory system’ (Collins, 2018). Thus, in considering the development and the contemporary nature of international cannabis control, it is necessary to recognize not only the asymmetrical relations of power between different actors, but also the inherent messiness and ambivalence of frameworks as well as the social agency of actors to negotiate, disrupt and subvert global governance arrangements in ways that accord with preferred agendas and goals.

This chapter maps the overall contours of cannabis control in global perspective, identifying the main actors and organizations as well as the infrastructure of international drug policy, describing the main continuities and changes over the past century and outlining the ways in which cannabis is subjected to control mechanisms across different national and subnational contexts.