To be delisted is to be removed from a controlled-substances schedule — the legal opposite of being scheduled. The most consequential recent example for this Atlas came at the international level.
On 2 December 2020, the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) voted — narrowly, 27 to 25 with one abstention — to delete cannabis and cannabis resin from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention, the treaty's most restrictive tier. The move followed a formal recommendation from the World Health Organization, which had reviewed the evidence and judged Schedule IV placement unwarranted given cannabis's recognised medical uses.
Crucially, this was a partial delisting: cannabis remains in Schedule I and stays under international control. But removing it from the heroin-class tier was a turning point — symbolic and practical — easing the path for medical-cannabis research and signalling a shift in global drug policy. Delisting at the national level, moving a substance down or off a country's own narcotics schedule, is the mechanism by which hemp and CBD have been progressively freed from drug law.
Thailand delisted cannabis from its narcotics schedule on 9 June 2022.
- UNODC — CND votes to remove cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Convention (2 Dec 2020)
- UN News — CND reclassifies cannabis; Schedule IV deletion (2 Dec 2020)
