 Cannabis has been known as a psychoactive plant for several hundred years and it was introduced to Europe around the 18th and 19th centuries. International drug control generally started just over a hundred years ago in 1912 with the International Convention on Opium. This controlled opium and morphine and cocaine in the form of controlling trade between countries. The idea was that these plants grew in only a few countries in the world and were then shipped to other countries often without any form of control. Cannabis was added to this list of international control in 1925 at the Second Convention. The modern framework for international drug control comes from three United Nations conventions 1961 which controlled plant materials such as cocaine and cannabis from 1971 which added the more synthetic substances and from 1988. The 1988 convention included a controversial clause putting pressure to criminalize personal possession of drugs and of course that included cannabis. However this is not completely compulsory. What we see here on the international level is the first balanced response whereby countries were originally pressured not to produce or supply cannabis whereas now countries also have to reduce the demand for cannabis. There have been quite a few government inquiries into the level of control for cannabis. These have come to three general conclusions. The first is that cannabis is not a harmless substance and therefore requires some form of control. The second is that those harms have often been overstated and so the third is questioning whether criminal law is really the most appropriate control for the users. Increasingly there are models for regulation of cannabis which means limited controlled supply for non-medical use. Probably the most famous in Europe is the Dutch system which started in the 1970s. By 2011 there were 651 what the Dutch called coffee shops across the territory selling limited amounts of cannabis to over 18 year olds without selling other drugs without selling alcohol without advertising. In the last couple of years we're starting to see some serious debates and proposals for different models of legalization of cannabis for non-medical purposes. This means designs for regulatory controls over limited distribution systems. Most of these may well be in breach of the letter or the spirit of the United Nations conventions but their proponents declare their aims are to reduce the harms of the illicit market, to maintain the quality of substances through the regulation of their production, to raise much needed taxes in this times of austerity and to prioritise limited resources to focus on violent and organised crime gangs.