A Danish parliamentary committee calls for cannabis research and review of personal-use offences

In May 1969, a Danish parliamentary committee examining tougher drug legislation also asked whether cannabis should be legalised. Its answer was to seek more research, including research into what prohibition itself did to users.

The committee’s report of 29 May records a debate within the legislature. It neither legalised cannabis nor removed personal possession from the criminal law. Its significance lies in the questions MPs wanted the government to investigate.

A committee considering two bills

The committee considered a Penal Code amendment and an amendment to the Euphoriant Substances Act. Its report records eight meetings, consultations with ministers and written submissions from individuals and organisations.

The proposals formed part of a wider response to drug use among young people. The committee wanted parliamentary oversight of that response, extending beyond the immediate wording of criminal offences to the planning and implementation of other measures.

The treaty argument was questioned

The interior minister reported that the health authorities and an interdepartmental committee opposed changing cannabis legislation. They referred to cannabis’s placement in Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention.

But the report also recorded information from the health authority that this placement reflected the absence of recognised medical uses as well as judgments about danger. It noted that cannabis’s position relative to other drugs had been questioned. These were arguments recorded in 1969, rather than present-day medical conclusions adopted by this article.

Research into the substance and the law

The committee found no clear evidential basis for settling the question of controlled legalisation. It requested greater research into cannabis’s risks, the effects of legal controls on users and other matters relevant to deciding whether cannabis products should have a place in society.

It also asked whether effective prevention and treatment might favour removing conduct concerned solely with personal consumption from the drug law’s list of offences. That was a request to examine an option. It supplied no operative exemption, possession allowance or right to obtain cannabis.

Review alongside stronger penalties

The report proposed that the two laws return for review in the 1970–71 session. It treated the legislation and its effects as connected questions that should be considered together.

The serious-supply offence and the later removal of the review clauses have separate timeline entries. So does the prosecutor’s July warning policy.

Keeping these events distinct makes Denmark’s history clearer: Parliament could pursue stronger supply penalties, question the treatment of users and call for evidence without enacting cannabis legalisation.^[1]