UN Places HHC Under Same Regulations as Cannabis and Methamphetamine

Last week, the 68th session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) voted almost unanimously to place hexahydrocannabinol (HHC) under Schedule II of the 1971 Convention.

After over a year of warnings from various international health bodies and individual efforts from a swathe of countries to regulate this novel substance independently, this marks the most meaningful effort to date to control the rapid spread of HHC.

HHC, a semi-synthetic cannabinoid which has a similar effect to delta-9 THC, started to appear on the European drug markets in 2022, according to data from the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA), and has since spread quickly thanks to the lack of cohesive regulation and its relative ease of production.

While many governments have celebrated the move, some are already pushing back on this prohibitionist stance, arguing that similarly to cannabis prohibition will simply push production to the black market and make available products more dangerous with less oversight.

CND Decision 

On March 13, following ‘five days of intensive discussions on global drug policy’, the CND voted to approve the recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and place six new substances under international control.

HHC was the only substance of the six to be placed under Schedule II of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances, which means it now shares a category with cannabis and methamphetamine.

This classification is reserved for substances which are considered to have a moderate risk of abuse and dependence, but which still have some potential medical uses.

Effectively, HHC is now banned in all UN member states, which are now required to implement strict regulation on its distribution and manufacture.

Governments must now license and regulate all activities involving HHC, including production, trade, import and export. While licenced researchers and medical professionals can handle it legally for research purposes, law enforcement agencies are now required to criminalise unauthorised possession, production, or sale, with penalties including fines and imprisonment.

Every country present at the session voted in favour of the new categorisation, with the notable exception of the United States. Given the ongoing issues the US is having with the proliferation of ‘intoxicating hemp substances’ and the lack of federal regulation, this was a surprising omission.

In a brief statement, US representatives said that they were ‘unable to vote on the proposals’ to place HHC into schedule II, but that it was ‘already controlled in the United States’ at levels that will allow it to meet its international obligations.

This is a questionable statement, given that HHC is not explicitly listed in the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). While individual states have moved to ban HHC and other synthetic cannabinoids, federally its legality remains open to interpretation of the Farm Bill.

The spread of HHC

In January 2023, Business of Cannabis first reported that the EUDA (then called the EMCDDA) had hosted its first ‘technical expert meeting’ on HHC, warning member states that it represented ‘the first major new change in the market for “legal” replacements to cannabis since Spice emerged in Europe just over 15 years ago’

The EUDA said it had been tracking the substance via the EU Early Warning System (EWS) since October 2022, after first being identified in May that year. By December it had been found in 70% of member states.

According to its latest European Web Survey on Drugs 2024, which was last updated on February 25, 2025, synthetic cannabinoids are now the joint seventh most used drug in the EU, alongside Ketamine, with 14% of the 61,732 respondents stating they had used them in the last 12 months.

The CND voted to ban HHC following a recommendation from the WHO, which stated that it ‘poses a risk to public health and has no recognised therapeutic use’, though this was in part due to the lack of research on the substance. 

It noted that HHC has been shown to produce similar behavioural effects to delta-9-THC in animals, and in humans ‘sleepiness, euphoria, anxiety, agitation, psychosis, tremors and disorientation were reported, in addition to respiratory, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal effects’.

Furthermore, ‘no studies of the dependence potential of HHC in animals or humans have been reported’, but its effects on the CB1 receptors suggest that it would produce a similar dependence to delta-9-THC.

Similarly, no studies have been reported on the likelihood of abuse, but as a CB1 agonist it is thought to have abuse potential.

“There is sufficient evidence that hexahydrocannabinol is used in such a way as to constitute a public health and social problem, warranting placement under international control.”

International responses to the HHC ban

One outlier in the global backlash against HHC and other emerging synthetic cannabinoids is the Czech Republic, which earlier this year passed its pioneering Psychomodulatory Substances Act. 

Under this new act, designed largely to attempt to regulate these substances, HHC has been classed as ‘under review’, seeing it studied for up to two years to properly evaluate its safety.

The bill, described as ‘revolutionary’ by its proponents, aimed to ‘regulate a broad range of substances that do not pose a serious risk to public health or that do not risk serious social impacts on individuals or society’, pushing against the almost unanimous international position of prohibition.

The Czech Rational Addiction Policy Think Tank, founded in 2017 by former National Drug Coordinator Jindřich Vobořil, has pushed back on the CND’s move.

In a statement, the think tank said that it believes this move is ‘not only procedurally flawed, but also factually unjustified and contrary to the modern approach to the regulation of psychoactive substances.’

It went on to criticise the assessment by the WHO, stating that to class a substance under schedule II information must be included on the ‘extent or likelihood of abuse of the substance, the severity of public health and social problems associated with the use, and the therapeutic use of the substance.’

It argues that the WHO’s report (based on a submission from October 2024) does not provide ‘sufficient information on the addictive and abusive potential of HHC, relies on isolated cases from several countries instead of scientific data, and completely ignores information on the therapeutic use of the substance.’

“Any decision made in the absence of this information would therefore be legally actionable and could undermine the credibility of the entire international drug control system.”

Instead, it recommends the CND adopt its new regulatory system, which it argues ‘fills the vacuum’ created by member states having ‘no other means of regulation besides prohibition’.

Conversely, in Ireland there are increasing calls to prohibit HHC altogether. According to local news reports, addiction specialists and religious commentators have argued the government’s failure to ban HHC has ‘damaged’ children.

Consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr Bobby Smyth told one publication: “It’s now the second most common cause of drug induced psychosis in Ireland and has been for the last year or so.”

Speaking to the Irish Independent, Bishop Michael Router, who leads the Irish hierarchy’s drugs initiative, urged the government to ban the sale of HHC vapes ‘as a matter of urgency’, similarly arguing that it is responsible for the psychological and physical harm of young people in the country.

Wider implications

Looking to the US as an example, its clear that moves to ban these new synthetic cannabinoids can often impact the wider hemp industries adversely and unfairly.

The issue lies in the way HHC is produced. Today, HHC is typically produced from low-THC hemp plants by chemically converting hemp-derived CBD into THC and then into HHC through hydrogenation​.

It can be produced relatively easily from low-THC hemp, which is legal and widely available throughout most of the world.

Using hemp-derived CBD allows producers to create HHC without directly handling cannabis (high-THC cannabis), leveraging the hemp’s legal status while chemically modifying its cannabinoids.

As seen in California, Texas, Missouri and other US states, attempts to regulate these emerging compounds regularly lead to overreach, impacting the operations of the legal production of industrial hemp.

It’s as yet unclear whether similar overreach will occur elsewhere, but the hemp industry is undoubtedly keeping a close eye on how UN member states plan to enforce this new ban.

This article was originally published by Business of Cannabis and is reprinted here with permission.