We, individuals and groups associated with Cannabis sativa L., and engaged with it beyond the mere interest of gain, work, or personal enrichment;

Recognising that Cannabis sativa L. (hemp, marijuana, pot, weed, also known as pakalolo, भांग, dagga, গাঁজা, konopi, 麻, ntsangu, коноплі, haschisch, riamba, قنب, siddhi, kif, cáñamo, mambe, 大麻, chanvre, maconha, 대마초, mota, κάνναβη, hamppu, among countless other names) has coexisted symbiotically with humankind for millennia;

Recognising also that during hundreds of generations in Africa, Asia, Europe, and dozens of generations in America and in the Pacific region, a large number of human communities have learnt and managed to coexist with Cannabis sativa L., many times making it part of their culture, of their agriculture, of their traditions, and of their way of life: part of their life;

Recalling that those who grew it were once respected in their communities; those who had wisdom about it were praised; and some of those who used it were revered; many others used it on a daily basis in the most normalised way: cooking with it or clothing from it, smoking it for relaxation or spiritually, or ingesting it as part of the maintenance of a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, to prevent diseases, or to cope with the symptoms of health conditions;

Affirming this self-evident truth, shared by modern scientific and ancestral wisdom, that all living beings have their place on this planet, and the synergy and interdependence of ecosystems is an integral part of human life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness;

Noting that during the immense majority of human history, the contemporary and artificial dichotomy between “low-THC” and “high-THC” did not exist, and that most human cultures and knowledge of the plant and its uses developed as an entangled whole;

Noting also that the singular subjective psychoactive effect of Cannabis has helped humans cope with stigma, repression, and biocultural eradication for a century of prohibition, but also accompanied humans through other tragedies of modern human history like the forced deportation of millions during the “slave trade”;

Stressing that after a hundred years of failed international control over Cannabis sativa L., and amidst the devastating consequences of fifty years of global “war on drugs,” the international community is struggling:

(i) to take immediate steps to effectively put an end to the absurd social experiment of Cannabis prohibition, 

(ii) to activate the necessary processes to correct the historical record, including by repealing aberrations in international conventional law related to Cannabis and other “drugs”,

(iii) to provide the appropriate remedies and reparations due to the numerous victims of human rights violations caused by State actions pursuant to their drug control policies, and

(iv) to cease to use Cannabis and other “drugs” for social control internally and geopolitical manoeuvres externally;

Stressing also that a number of “legalisation” efforts have perpetuated the prohibitionist practices of ignoring, displacing, rejecting, excluding, stigmatising, disenfranchising Cannabis peoples, and disregarding, dismissing, or appropriating their diverse living cultures and heritage, and their wisdom and custodianship of nature;

Stressing further that nobody has yet apologised for the millions of lives destroyed by drug control policies;

Reminding that when a long train of abuses and usurpations, invariably affecting the same plant and the people around it, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute disenfranchisement and lawlessness, and when such abuses and usurpations have resulted in the devastation of societies and ecosystems well beyond the original plant and its peoples, it is their right, it is their duty, to provide new Guards for their future security;

Solemnly declare:

1. Legatio Cannabis–大麻大使馆–سفارة القنب is an independent State established through usucaption, a thousand years of culture, and a hundred years of persecution;

2. Legatio Cannabis–大麻大使馆–سفارة القنب shall be anational, peaceful, free from allegiance, without territory but with full powers to establish diplomatic work and consular services, to engage in endeavours for the pursuit of global peace, security, the conservation of nature, and mutual understanding among and between all regions, nations, peoples, ethnic and cultural groups, as well as all other acts and things which independent States may of right do, with the exceptions of:

(i) engagement in any form of war, or in any military or otherwise violent endeavour, and

(ii) activities related to territory.

3. All political connections between Legatio Cannabis–大麻大使馆–سفارة القنب and other States ought to remain peaceful and grounded in mutual respect; citizenship rights of Legatio Cannabis–大麻大使馆–سفارة القنب shall not be construed as impeding the sovereignty of other States over people enjoying such rights.

4. A World Conference on the Cannabis Embassy shall be convened to further advance the constitutional arrangements of Legatio Cannabis–大麻大使馆–سفارة القنب. Pending such Conference, the Government of the Cannabis Embassy may issue rules and regulations from time to time to administer the current affairs of Legatio Cannabis–大麻大使馆–سفارة القنب. 

On 17 March 2024, the Cannabis Embassy (officially: Legatio Cannabis–大麻大使馆–سفارة القنب) was proclaimed as a sui generis ad’hoc independent State without a territory, in Vienna (Austria) in parallel of the United Nations’ Commission on Narcotic Drugs. At that meeting, it was decided that the entity’s legal status would be reconsidered before 20 April 2025 and a Constitution eventually adopted. A Constitutional Council was created to assume these mandates. Since then, limited support, personal difficulties of involved volunteers, and a complex context, have resulted in the Constitutional Council suspending its work.

Return to an Opium Wars era

On 19 February 2025, the world commemorated a hundred years since the first addition of Cannabis to the international drug control treaties, a framework of international law created as an outcome of the “Opium Wars.” Only a few days before, the President of the United States had introduced an executive order articulating a trade war strategy against Canada, China, and Mexico, around claims of drug-related disruptions generated by these countries’ governments. In 2022, the President of the Russian federation had criticised as “ша́йка наркотика́нoв” or “drug addicts” among others the leadership of Ukraine, as leverage for its invasion. All of these events are more reminiscent of the centuries of rules of “Great Powers” and vassal States —with little to no room for individual and collective rights, nature, or cultural diversity— than of the last eight decades of post-Second World War international order(s) that were epitomised by the United Nations, its Charter, and adherence to it by States.

On State and Territory

Our world is also changing because the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta had a constitutional change which highly diminished its independence vis-a-vis the Holy See, ceasing to be the century-old living example of an “independent state without territory” it had been for centuries. In parallel, because of unhinged human industrial activity over the past centuries, sea levels rising everywhere put at risk the very existence of territory for some States, particularly in the Pacific region, questioning from the other end the question of statehood and territoriality, at the crossroads of the long-termism of international law and the imminent threat of the disappearance of entire countries —but not of their peoples and their States.

In this context, the legal status of the Cannabis Embassy is not only revitalised: it becomes a critical, incremental element for the transition of our societies from a post-World War II order to a new disorderly international landscape. States without territories for peoples without homeland will again become quintessential: not only for Pacific island countries, but also possibly to resolve long-standing territorial frictions, like those involving so-called Indigenous Peoples, or in the Eastern Mediterranean. As cannabis peoples and communities throughout continents will continue to be at risk (albeit different ones), the establishment of an independent, intangible State without territory and its progressive acquisition of State rights and personality through uninterrupted existence and continued exercise of State rights is also critical. A State guarantor of rights, without prison or army, will be a lifeline to overcome the threats that put at risk the existence and millennial living cultures of all cannabis communities worldwide.

In complement to territorial States, right-based States without territory as cultural guarantors are our future.