The Cannabis Embassy Campus Vienna is a popular education programme on drug policy advocacy & anti-prohibition literacy.

🌱✨ A dynamic and enlightening learning experience exploring the rich history and future of the United Nations drug control & global grassroots cannabis civil society movements.

The first edition was held on 13 March 2024 at Wohlmut Arts Centre, Vienna, Austria, a day prior to the start of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs’ 67th meeting & High Level Segment.

The Campus sessions were attended by participants from Aotearoa-New Zealand, Austria, Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

This Campus session also received the support of the HempClub which published this blog post on the day.

2024 Courses:

→ International Law & United Nations 101 (45 min.)

• International Law
• Self-executing treaties
• Inter-governmental organisations
• The United Nations family
• How the UN is organised
• Not all IGO is UN
• UN drug control agencies
• The International Narcotics Control Board
• UN health agency: WHO
• Other UN agencies concerned with plants and people using them

→ International Cannabis Law – advanced (1h)

• Analysis of the legal regime for cannabis contained in the drug control instruments (1961 Single Convention, 1971 Convention, 1988 UN Convention).

→ Anti-prohibitionist activism at the UN, 1998–2024 (1h30)

• Before 1998: first grassroots cannabis opposition to drug treaties (1964, 1990) and lead-up to UNGASS 1998 (1987, 1988, 1990)
• UNGASS 1998
• Early 2000s: Changes in UN drug control apparatus & birth of civil society movements
• 2008 and the one year delay
• 2009: a new recycled 10-year anti-drug plan
• 2012 to 2016: of Cages & Kaffeeschnüffler

→ People, Plants, and Intellectual Property (IP): a short History (1h)

• Basic terms & definitions (based on two WIPO documents)

• Introduction to the history of treaties on “genetic resources”

• Plants and plant’s reproductive materials = seeds & cuts & genomic information

• History of treaties in the field (videos by Geoff Tansey & Guy Kasler)

• Basic types of classic IP (patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyright) and new forms/issues (plant variety protection rights, DSI)

• What is Biopiracy? The value of GR & TKs: Immaterial assets & specific modalities of access; What is bioprospecting; When bioprospecting turn into Biopiracy.

→ Current International Law landscape of IP Privileges on Legacy & Craft Cannabis (1h15)

• Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) & Nagoya Protocol
• FAO’s Plant Treaty/Seed Treaty (International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture – ITPGRFA)
• World Trade Organisation/TRIPs Agreement
• Introduction to World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) [the UNODC of IP]
• UPOV [the INCB of seeds / sometimes called Monsanto treaty] and Breeders’ Privileges (Plant Variety Protection Rights)
• Digital Sequence Information (Int’l law on GRs II)
• Other: Patents, Human Rights, CITES

→ Aotearoa Case Study (1h – By Jenna-Rose Astwood, Tū Wairua project)

• Concern w/ biopiracy: Protection of TK & TK holders/practitionners

• Appropriation

• Protection of biological heritage

• Lack of protective mechanisms

• A discussion on the use of term “GR”.

→ GRATK Treaty, the IGC and its treaty-making work (45 min.)

→Conclusion: Cannabis, TK, GR, and us – open discussion (cancelled)