Tag: CASP

CASP Partners with FAAAT and the 2018 International Cannabis Policy Conference in Vienna, Austria

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by Dominic Corva, Executive Director

The Center for the Study of Cannabis and Social Policy (CASP) is proud to announce that we are partnering with the 2018 International Cannabis Policy Conference (ICPC2018) in Vienna, Austria. A previous post covered Dr. Tony Silvaggio’s invitation to present. Since then, the organizers also reached out to arrange a formal partnership at this international event that will take place on December 7-9, 2018.

The event’s location and time frame parallel the United Nations (UN) Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) meeting where the World Health Organization will present its scheduling recommendations on cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabis in all forms (December 5-7, Vienna). These organizations are Inter-Governmental Organizations (IGO), which means they represent interests developed by individual UN member countries in contrast with global civil society.

The CND gathering will be the last global meeting before the March 2019 High Level UN Session on Drug Policy, which will address the UN’s 2019-2029 agenda on drugs, and cannabis scheduling for it.

The ICPC2018 web site describes three purposes for the event. The first purpose is directly relevant to the CND meeting, the second is relevant to a “more-than-cannabis” global social issue, Sustainable Development, and the third is to provide a forum for attendees and presenters to learn from each other about what’s going on in their respective fields of action:

“The International Cannabis Policy Conference, December 7-9th 2018 is the last opportunity for external inputs from key stakeholders: researchers, NGOs, students, public officials, policymakers, private sector businesses, investors, and all other interested parties – on this very crucial issue.

Besides scheduling controls, this event presents the contribution of cannabis & industrial hemp markets and products innovations relevant to the achievements of the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), a global framework for sustainable societies.

The International Cannabis Policy Conference includes sessions with top research, industry and policy leaders and an exposition hall showcasing related food, products and services.“

The CASP Role 

My role at the event will be to carefully observe presentations and panels in order to present takeaways at the end of the day. Dr. Silvaggio will still be presenting his research on the environmental impacts of post-prohibition in California, as well.

We are incredibly grateful to FAAAT (For Alternative Approaches to Addiction Think and do tank) for inviting us to participate.

The FAAAT and CASP Fit

The ICPC2018, similarly to its main organizer NGO FAAAT, is a partnership of global drug war reform organizations — an assembly of international non-governmental organizations (INGO) that represent elements of civil society around the world that have as their common ground dissent to the global war on drugs.

We at CASP are proud to be a part of this process, as a US-based NGO for influencing cannabis policy and markets on behalf of ending the drug war, not just carving out a market exception to it.

The Globalization of Postprohibition, CASP role

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Dr. Tony Silvaggio, CASP Senior Research Associate

by Dominic Corva, Executive Director

This morning I woke up to an email from Dr. Tony Silvaggio, our Senior Research Associate who is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Humboldt State University. He was being invited to present in Vienna, Austria, at the December International Cannabis Policy Conference (ICPC).

The ICPC is an overlapping and parallel conference at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (UNCND). It is organized by FAAAT, For Alternative Approaches to Addiction Think and do tank. FAAAT is what we in the social sciences call a global civil society organization, or a Transnational Advocacy Network, or sometimes even an “alter-globalization” social movement organization. 

The UNCND produces a “World Plan of Action” report on the subject of drug control every 10 years. It is part of an ecology of what we call in the social sciences “global governance institutions” that form the “top layer” of legal frameworks for prohibition worldwide. The UNCND is a fairly old global institution. It was established in 1946. It has been a central node for the creation of prohibition’s global frameworks, along with other United Nations (UN) institutions like the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

That “top layer” is responsible for worldwide prohibition, but it has been changing in the last several decades. This process has been documented by the Transnational Institute’s (TNI) Drugs and Democracy program, another global civil society institution. Two of their academics, political scientist Martin Jelsma and historian David Beweley-Taylor, have been publishing for more than 20 years on how the drug war consensus has been destabilized in that top layer.

Anyway, although it’s short notice, Tony may be able to represent CASP in early December, given that his invitation specified his affiliation with us in particular, which is pretty cool and evidence of CASP’s global reach.