* At least until the end of 1935.
Corn-removers and Pact of
Steel
In May 1939, at its 30th session, the Health Committee agreed on
maintaining the conclusions from the first CEP review, this time clearly
“declaring however that these conclusions do not target those of these
preparations that can only be used externally” (LoN, 1939a, p. 5;
Preparations exempted…, 1951). The Council of the LoN ratified
the move at its 105th session, on 23 May 1939 –one day after Hitler and
Mussolini signed the Pact of Steel– and communicated to State Parties
on 12 July a Circular Letter titled “Application of Article 10 of the
Geneva Convention of 1925 to preparations based on Indian hemp Extract
or Tincture under reserve of certain exemptions” (LoN, 1939a) –the one
from 1936 did not made that precision (LoN, 1936). Shortly after,
“with the outbreak of the Second World War and the occupation of Paris,
the OIHP was not able to function as intended and could not fulfil its
international health functions” (UN, s.d.).
Although its headquarters were occupied in 1940 (Tworek, 2019), part of
the OIHP staff had managed to escape to Southern France, with documents
and archives.
In Geneva, the LoN had already started reducing activities in 1938
(Magliveras, 1999, p. 31; LoN, 1938a), and drastically after the
expulsion of the USSR in December 1939 (LoN, 1939c). “By June 1940, the
staff of the Health Section had been so depleted by resignations and
departures for national service that it included only two medically
qualified members” (Howard-Jones, 1950) and almost all activities of
the LoN had been phased out (Le Monde, 1946) except a few programmes
that passed on to be carried on by the Secretariat, among which was the
“protection of public health and control of the manufacture of and
illicit traffic in narcotic drugs” (Magliveras, 1999, p. 31), carried
on throughout WWII and the immediate post-war period (LoN, 1945c;
Tworek, 2019); the Permanent Central Opium Board and Drug Supervisory
Body also reduced, but maintained activities (Dangerous drugs…,
1946, p. 175; May, 1948, pp. 342–345; McAllister, 2000, pp. 134–141).
The last action of the LoN related to Cannabis and its 1935/1938
CEP assessments had taken place on 31 December 1939 (Table 3) when, in
an attempt of normality, the Secretariat issued a revised list of drugs,
preparations, and medicines under international control (drawn-up by the
Sub-Committee to the List), which confusingly acknowledged the placement
of “preparations made of extract and tincture of Indian hemp” under
international control, with a footnote reading:
“This clause applies to countries which have adopted the recommendation
of the Health Committee of the League of Nations to place these products
under control […]. The Health Committee […] stated that
their conclusions, however, do not apply to those of the said
preparations which are capable only of external use” (LoN, 1939d, p.
28)
After the War
The LoN was dissolved in 1946, its mandates transferred to the UN
(Myers, 1948; WHO, 1947b). That same year, the penultimate meeting of
OIHP’s Comité Permanent meeting was held: it discharged its mandates to
an interim commission tasked with establishing the WHO (1950a), and
suspended the publication of its landmark Monthly Bulletin (WHO,
1958, p. 430). By February 1948, the WHO “had absorbed all the OIHP’s
obligations towards the States parties” (WHO, 1958, p. 56; Fig. 3)
including drug assessment under the C25.
Governments had agreed, in 1946, on a plan for the denunciation of the
1907 Rome Agreement (OIHP’s constitution) and termination of the Office
by 15 November 1949 (UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, 1943;
WHO, 1948a, add.1; 1950a, p. 2). The decision was unpleasant to France,
which feared losing its influence on international health matters
(Paillette, 2021); others also continued defending the active role of
the Office amidst its liquidation: in September 1947 Dr Morgan, chairman
of the Comité Permanent, argued that as long as the Office was not
effectively terminated,
“the consultative opinion of the latter, in pursuance of Articles 8 and
10 of the 1925 Geneva Convention, would be required to give legal
authority to the recommendations of the [WHO] experts” (WHO,
1947b).
The LoN was liquidated in effect in July 1947, 15 months after the
decision to terminate it (Myers, 1948). But the OIHP was a different
story. It continued functioning even after its programmed death: an
obscure-motivated refusal of Spain to denounce OIHP’s funding Agreement,
added to legal uncertainties surrounding its termination by the
non-self-governed occupied territories of Germany, Japan, and Libya, and
by newly-independent countries (WHO, 1949, pp. 2–3) had made “apparent
that the Office must continue” (WHO, 1949, p. 4). On 15 November 1950,
the last few remaining activities of epidemiological monitoring carried
out by the OIHP ceased –one year after the deadline set, and mostly
because of a cruel lack of resources (WHO, 1950a; 1950b). Nevertheless,
an empty OIHP continued existing de jure until 1952 when,
finally, the denunciation of the Federal Republic of Germany, Japan, and
Spain ended its long agony (WHO, 1950a; 1952a, p. 30).
Early work of the WHO on
Cannabis
The inception of WHO did not look particularly promising forCannabis medicines: as early as 1947, the three monographs ofCannabis were withdrawn from the International Pharmacopoeia, the
management of which WHO had just taken over –although countless other
medicines were deleted, particularly herbal ones (WHO, 1947a).
The WHO however really engaged with the drug control aspect ofCannabis products in 1952, at the third ECDD meeting –initially
named the Expert Committee on Narcotic Drugs (WHO, 1948b), this body
created to carry on the scientific tasks previously assumed by OIHP’s
CEP changed titles several times, until being named ECDD in 1968
(Danenberg et al, 2013). At its 1952 meeting, “the question of
justification of the use of cannabis preparations for medical purposes”
was discussed, and the committee declared that
“cannabis preparations are practically obsolete. So far as [the
Committee] can see, there is no justification for the medical use of
cannabis preparations.” (WHO, 1952b)
An opinion reiterated at subsequent meetings (Krawitz and
Riboulet-Zemouli, 2018; Riboulet-Zemouli, 2018).
Oblivion
There is no trace of any inputs from any pre-WWII meetings, decisions,
or documentation in 1950s ECDD meetings, let alone of the 1935/1938
episode. The never-ending termination of the OIHP, in conflict with WHO,
might not have facilitated knowledge-sharing.
In 1962, an article reported that all Cannabis preparations were
under control, with the exception of topical preparations and “a
medicinal cigarette called ‘Indian Cigarettes of Grimault’ […]
exempted from control” (The cannabis problem…, 1962),[11] but
Parke-Davis medicines of the 1935 list were still produced in the late
1940s (Museum of Healthcare at Kingston, 2022a) and in the 1950s “some
Governments had reported that there still existed an appreciable use of
cannabis drugs in medical practice” (CND, 1955). In an analysis of
“The position of preparations of narcotic drugs under the narcotics
treaties…” (1959), the scope of the 1935/1938 decisions was
considered “to be a matter of doubt.”
Secretary-General’s note on “The Question of Cannabis” (CND, 1960)
ignores the issue, and its compilation of 1,860 references onCannabis incidentally mentions OIHP, only once, and unrelated to
the 1935 assessment (CND, 1965, p. 45). The list of drugs under
international control edited by the CND (1961) during the negotiation of
the Single Convention only mentions: “Relevant articles of the 1925
Convention which are applicable to Cannabis and its resin, and to
galenical preparations of Cannabis” –without mentioning anything about
preparations, ignoring the last list of drugs under control of the LoN
in December 1939, omitting the entire 1935/1938 episode.