Back in March 2025 the United Nations Commission on Psychotropic Substances (CND) approved, by qualified majority, the recommendation to include hexahydrocannabinol (HHC) in Schedule II of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances.the
The committee decided to adopt the World Health Organisations (WHO) recommendation to include HHC in Schedule II of the Convention. The inclusion of HHC in Schedule II will mean that all 184 signatory countries of the convention will be obliged to restrict the use of this substance exclusively to scientific and medical purposes, in accordance with the provisions of Schedule II – thus being subject to the implementation of prescription and licensing regimes for its production and distribution – and above all to the integration of HHC in their drug control strategies.
The Irish government has decided to adopt the recommendation from the WHO. On the 29th July 2025, The Irish Minister for Health, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, the Minister for Public Health, Wellbeing and the National Drugs Strategy, Jennifer Murnane O’Connor and the Minister for Mental Health, Mary Butler have announced that the drug Hexahydrocannabinol (HHC) has been categorised as a Schedule 1 controlled drug Misuse of Drugs Act 1977. This means that the import, export, production, possession, sale, and supply of products containing HHC is now illegal.
