A confidential letter from the INCB on the status of CBD has agitated the sector for several days. Published by the Portuguese media CannaReporter, the document is indeed a new piece. What he says, on the other hand, does not surprise anyone who follows the file: the complete legal framework had been laid down by a French researcher from 2022, with institutional consequences that the member states prefer to ignore, which go far beyond the CBD alone and that the INCB itself be careful not to formalize it.
On May 20 and 22, 2026, the CannaReporter site published in two parts [ndlr : une troisième est à venir] his analysis of an exclusive document: a confidential letter from the INCB (International Narcotics Control Boardthe UN quasi-judicial body responsible for drug conventions) reveals that CBD is “outside international control”. The information circulated quickly in European cannabis professional networks.
But if the letter is indeed an exclusive, it at most confirms what we already knew. However, this does not reduce its scope because the implications are significant.
The letter: a new piece
The letter in question is identifiable: it is the Circular E/INCB/NAR/CL20/2024an information document distributed by the INCB to the States parties to the 1961 and 1971 conventions. Its subject: the application of these conventions “in relation to cannabis and substances derived from cannabis”. Its update by CannaReporter is the result of real work on access to information: Infarmed, the Portuguese ANSM, refused to provide it, the INCB referred it to the national authorities, and it was finally the European Commission which transmitted it with the agreement of the UN agency.
What the letter says, on the other hand, has been circulating in specialized circles for much longer. For example, we had already written it in 2020.
More recently, Dr. Pavel Pachta, former secretary and then member of the INCB, mentioned the circular during a side event official meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotics in March 2026 in Vienna. It was also following this mention that CannaReporter confirmed to us that it had searched for, and obtained, the Circular.
This document has since been cited, analyzed and partially reproduced in an article in High Times dated April 9, 2026. The author, Michael Krawitz, specified that the circular “reaffirms that only certain cannabinoids, mainly THC and its isomers, are internationally listed in the Schedules”, explicitly distinguishing these compounds from CBD.
So what the letter says is no surprise. And we can add context to why the INCB got there, and what it really entails beyond CBD.
What the law has already said since 2022
In March 2022, the Franco-Algerian researcher Kenzi Riboulet-Zemouli published via the FAAAT think-tank a monograph entitled High Compliance, a lex lata legalization for the non-medical cannabis industry. This text of more than 130 pages, available in open access on SSRN, established with complete legal apparatus that cannabis products “not mentioned in the Schedules of the conventions, for example cannabidiol” are structurally outside the scope of international drug law.
The central argument: Article 2, paragraph 9 of the 1961 Single Convention allows states to exempt substances from the narcotics control regime as long as they are “commonly used in industry for purposes other than medical or scientific”. And this provision, writes Riboulet-Zemouli, makes no distinction between CBD and THC, nor between cannabis and any other drug listed in the Schedules.
The publication had an immediate effect: for the first time in the history of the INCB, the president of the body went to New York to consult theOffice of Legal Affairs of the United Nations. An institutional earthquake that went completely unnoticed in the sector media.
The report High Compliance is not an opinion: it is a literal reading of the texts. The international conventions of 1961, 1971 and 1988 only control the substances expressly listed in their annexes. CBD is not included. He never appeared there. The WHO had also recommended in 2018, following an evaluation by its Expert Committee on Drug Dependence, that “preparations containing mainly CBD and less traces of THC should not be placed under international control”. This recommendation did not change the law but simply documented what the law already provided.
Kenzi Riboulet-Zemouli is here Kanavape of the Court of Justice of the European Union in November 2020 (case C-663/18), which concluded that European law precludes a member state from prohibiting the marketing of CBD legally produced in another member state, precisely because the molecule does not does not present the psychoactive properties which are the basis for its possible control.
What the INCB accepts and what it refuses to write
This is where the current position of the INCB, illustrated by the 2024 Circular and Pachta’s statements, becomes both interesting and problematic.
The INCB now accepts the interpretation of Article 2(9) for CBD. He recognizes that this molecule, although derived from Cannabis, can be exempted from the narcotics control regime. But he refuses to extend this logic to THC or other cannabinoids, without ever providing the slightest legal justification for this distinction.
And for good reason: there is none. The 1961 Convention was written before THC was even isolated and identified. It does not mention CBD or THC by name. Article 2(9) makes no distinction between molecules: it applies to all substances listed in the Schedules which are “commonly used in industry”. If the provision applies to CBD, it also applies to THC, to complex extracts, and to all cannabinoids. What is listed in the Convention is the “cannabis extract” therefore both CBD and THC. If the provision applies to the extract strong in CBD, it also applies to the extract strong in THC, or other. This is basic legal coherence.
The INCB knows this. So far he had found a the state in which convenient: accept orally the exemption for CBD, which satisfies the member states who want a legal CBD industry, without ever putting in writing the conditions which would allow the reasoning to be extended. Thus, countries that legalize recreational cannabis are in violation of the conventions, but a discreet violation, without formal confrontation. The system is held together by the ambiguity maintained.
Why the INCB is talking about it now
That the INCB saw fit to send a circular to its member states to clarify the status of CBD in 2024 is in itself interesting. This testifies to a reality on the ground: despite formal legal clarity, many states have continued to treat CBD as a controlled narcotic, through administrative inertia or restrictive interpretation.
This confusion is not trivial. It has led customs authorities to seize legal shipments, states to pursue traders for products not controlled internationally, and businesses to operate in a persistent regulatory fog. The 2024 INCB circular seeks to clear this fog not by creating a new right, but by recalling existing law.
This is a crucial distinction that the CannaReporter article tends to blur. Presenting the letter as a “revelation” suggests that the status of the CBD has just changed, or that it depends on a temporary benevolence from the INCB. It’s the opposite: the CBD is outside international control because the drafters of the 1961 conventions did not include it, moreover added the safety valve of article 2(9), and no administrative decision can change this structural fact.
What French operators should remember
For players in the CBD market in France, Belgium, Portugal or Quebec, this sequence illustrates a recurring phenomenon: real legal advances, documented by rigorous researchers, take years to percolate into the public and media debate in a readable form.
The good news is that these advances are solid. Kenzi Riboulet-Zemouli’s work, freely available since 2022, offers an analytical framework that any lawyer, regulator or entrepreneur can mobilize. The monograph High Compliance is not just an academic analysis: it is an operational tool to understand how states can regulate non-medical cannabis and uncontrolled cannabinoids like CBD, while remaining fully compliant with international law. If Malta’s 2022 law copies word-for-word the vocabulary of Article 2(9) or if Colombia’s current bill on the legalization of recreational cannabis and coca leaf is based on Article 2(9), it is not a coincidence… nor a scoop!
The INCB has now confirmed this in writing.
