From 26 September to 1 October 2025, Barcelona hosted the UNESCO’s World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development — also known as MONDIACULT 2025 — the largest world summit on culture, from now on held every four years. The Conference coincided with the “1925–2025 Centenary of Cannabis Prohibition” memorial date of 29 September. The Cannabis Embassy coordinated the action of allied civil society stakeholders from around the world, bringing the joint message of grassroots cannabis communities: Cannabis-related cultural practices are part of a living and diverse Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH). After 100 years of prohibition and bio-cultural erasure, the time has come to safeguard and uphold traditional & legacy living cannabis cultures.
During the 3 days of “Civic Agora” before the Summit as well as during the MONDIACULT itself, a recurrent theme of discussion — brought by the Sustainable Cannabis Policy Toolkit or the leaflet “Living Cannabis Cultures” — was the recognition of the living health-related knowledge systems of people who grow and/or use Cannabis as a critical cultural asset in advancing safer and healthier consumption patterns for cannabis products.
Biocultural Heritage & Terroir vs Potency
The conservation of traditional Cannabis plant varieties (“landraces”) is crucial for maintaining ecosystemic biodiversity; to prevent biopiracy and help maintain ecosystems where Cannabis is traditional, agri- and horti-cultural knowledge and know-hows are essential.
Importantly, the conservation of this pool of genetic varieties of traditional Cannabis plant varieties, and the knowledge associated with their cultivation, harvest, transformation, and uses, are also essential when re-legalising cannabis, to balance supply markets with sensory quality and terroir-oriented products (which have often more moderate amounts of the active compound THC), rather than only potency-based products.
Safeguarding Cannabis cultures also means conservating Cannabis biodiversity and thus preserving safer plant varieties and healthier products. But also, healthier ways to use them:
Sociocultural Legacy for Harm Reduction
Likewise, Cannabis-related cultures are repositories of community knowledge that can inform innovative harm-reduction strategies. The cultural rituals and social practices linked to cannabis use often act as vectors for safer, peer-based patterns of consumption, and harm reduction — echoing how many other traditional practices worldwide contribute to public health and wellbeing.
The safeguarding of traditional and heritage practices associated with Cannabis use in a sociocultural context is essential for nurturing information-rich, prevention-oriented environments and healthier models of use, in line with a recent report for the European Commission presented by EU Commissioner Glenn Micallef, in which it is explained that “cultural engagement can influence the promotion of good health, the prevention of ill disease, and the management and treatment of disease. […] understanding that cultural engagement is a positive health behaviour —similarly to engaging in [physical activity], eating nutritious food, or being out in nature.”
After his intervention during a side event on Culture and Health, Dr. Gundo Aurel Weiler (WHO Regional Director for Prevention and Health Promotion, Europe) underlined this vision of a more forward-looking approach to the nexus health–culture, explaining further the analogy between culture (including Cannabis-related intangible cultural heritage practices) and physical activity and sport: “nowadays it is well accepted that sports and physical activity have benefits for our health […] and we are seeing the evidence that arts interventions are going in the same direction.” He suggested that, in the future, the international community could eventually:
“recognise the effect of certain cultural and arts intervention for the wellbeing of our populations — just as we are recognising the effects of certain drugs and medicines which are put on the essential medicines list.”
This articulation situates cannabis-related sociocultural practices within a global framework where diverse living traditions are understood not only as heritage to be safeguarded, but also as potentially proactive contributors to health, wellbeing, and social cohesion — precisely the multidimensional perspective promoted by UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, but also in line with the World Health Organisation’s resolution WHA78.9 “Fostering social connection for global health.”
Europe's Culture–Health Cannabis Experience
The Cannabis Social Club (CSC), a cooperative non-profit policy model for Cannabis re-legalisation and small-scale supply, that focuses on the cannabis cultural sector, was a particularly relevant concept for discussion at the nexus of culture and public health, aligned with the finding of the EU “Culture and Health: Time to Act” report. Born in Spain, and now codified as part of the law in Germany and Malta, the CSC is a profoundly European “farmers’ market” equivalent for Cannabis supply which has gained traction among recent years for its benefits in terms of harm reduction and social integration.
After the Culture for Health report a few years ago and this recent EU release, the European Union is advancing fast towards a future “Culture Compass for Europe” strategic framework covering all dimensions of culture, with a critical focus on health. The CSCs and peer-based non-profit supply models for licit Cannabis, as well as the rich and diverse intangible cultural heritage of Cannabis in Europe, which is interconnected with cultural exchanges from all continents, are part of these societies “with a human face” and relying on smaller-scale interactions that constitute Europe’s culture and cultural heritage and “are fundamental to EU values and identity.”
Europe (Cannabis Embassy’s Region Sedenegi) is uniquely positioned to lead the way in linking cannabis cultures with public health, showing that small-scale, community-driven practices and peer-based knowledge exchange are more than heritage — they are tools for harm reduction and wellbeing. Cannabis Social Clubs (like other grassroots traditions elsewhere) illustrate how culture can shape safer, informed, and socially cohesive use. By safeguarding these living practices, Europe can demonstrate that Cannabis-related cultural engagement itself is a public health asset, challenging stigma and promoting resilient, healthier communities. In this way, cannabis culture and cannabis-related health are not separate domains, but mutually reinforcing pillars of forward-looking, human-centered policies.
