Heady reform

Implementing UN resolution on cannabis is sensible

One of the unnoticed contradictions embedded in the recent zeal of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in arresting sundry film stars and their relatives for possessing cannabis is that India voted with the majority in the UN to remove cannabis and cannabis resin from the list of most dangerous substances. This decision was taken at the International Conventions on Narcotic Drugs in December last year, ending a 59-year international regime under which cannabis was classified as a hard drug. Yet possession of cannabis continues to be a crime in India according to a 1985 law, the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic