International Trends and Implications of Cannabis Decriminalization : In Relation to the Hart-Devlin Debate
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This article re-examines the legitimacy of criminal regulation of cannabis use within the theoretical framework of the Hart-Devlin debate, with a view to clarifying the limits of criminal law intervention in cases of so-called “harmless immorality.” To this end, it first compares and analyzes Hart’s liberal theory of criminalization, which inherits John Stuart Mill’s harm principle, with Devlin’s legal moralism, which justifies the exercise of the penal power on the basis of majority morality and social cohesion. On that basis, it offers a theoretical account of how the competing values of individual self-determination, public health, and the protection of minors are structured in contemporary debates over cannabis regulation. The article then examines the processes of decriminalization and legalization of cannabis, as well as the associated constitutional debates, in jurisdictions such as the United States, Canada, and Germany, and explores their tensions with the international drug control regime established under United Nations conventions. It further surveys empirical research on the extent to which criminal law-centered drug policies have in fact contributed to reducing drug use, lowering crime rates, and improving public health outcomes. On the domestic front, the article analyzes the structure of blanket criminalization of cannabis use and possession under the Korean Narcotics Control Act, together with the reasoning of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court, and identifies the points at which the current legislative scheme either conflicts with, or operates in a manner that undermines, core modern principles of criminal law such as ultima ratio, the prohibition of excessive punishment, and the protection of adult individuals’ freedom in self-regarding conduct. Building on this analysis, it proposes a phased decriminalization strategy that clearly distinguishes between mere use/possession and profit-motivated distribution/ trafficking, and that shifts the regulatory model for the former toward an administrative, treatment- and education-oriented public health approach. Overall, by taking the debate over cannabis regulation as a focal case, the article reconstructs the classical confrontation between liberalism and legal moralism regarding the justification and limits of criminalization, and, through the integration of comparative and empirical analysis, argues for a fundamental reconsideration of Korean criminal law at both the legislative and interpretive levels.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.029 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.010 | 0.008 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.009 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".