ACKRELL CAPITAL CHAPTERV_ Global Cannabis Regulation In 2012, the presidents of Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico requested the UN to focus its next special session on drugs on policy reform rather than on a mere progress review and continuation of the same policies. In 2014, the Global Commission on Drug Policy—represented by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the former presidents of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland—called for an end to the criminalization of drug use and possession and for the responsible legal regulation of psychoactive substances. A UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs was originally scheduled for 2019, but was accelerated to April 2016 as a result of a proposal sponsored by Mexico and cosponsored by 95 other countries. The general assembly is the primary policy body of the United Nations, and one in which all UN member states have equal representation. Given this broad representation and the growing support for decriminalization, many expected the 2016 UNGASS on drugs to result in signif- icant changes in policy. In an open letter delivered to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the eve of the session, former presidents or prime ministers of Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Greece, Hungary, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland and Switzerland joined with high-profile scholars, celebrities, clergy, business leaders, elected officials and others in pressing the Secretary-General to call for reform of prohibitionist drug control policies. Those supporting reform were disappointed when the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution reaffirming its “commitment to the goals and objec- tives” of the three Conventions. Despite the lack of an immediate and fundamental shift away from the prohibitionist policies of the Conventions, other steps are being taken that may result in relaxed cannabis controls within the existing Conventions framework. A committee of the WHO tasked with making dru