The beginnings of international drug control.

International cooperation in drug control began in 1909 when the International Opium Commission met in Shanghai, China (above). Convened by the United States and attended by 13 world Powers, the Shanghai Conference led to the signing in 1912 of the first international Convention to attempt the control of a narcotic.

At the time, the opium trade was coming under increasing criticism, partly due to growing addiction problems in the Far East and in the colonial Powers, but also due to changing diplomatic and political allegiances within the broader context of international relations. As a direct consequence of the Shanghai Conference, the Hague Opium Convention was signed in 1912. The parties to the Convention agreed to: limit the manufacture, trade and use of these products to medical use; cooperate in order to restrict use and to enforce restriction efficiently; close opium dens; penalize possession; and prohibit selling to unauthorized persons.

The second International Opium Convention, concluded in 1925 and entered into force in 1928, introduced a statistical control system to be supervised by a Permanent Central Board. The Board also established a system of import certificates and export authorizations for the licit international trade in narcotic drugs. A Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs, signed in Geneva in 1931, introduced a compulsory estimates system aimed at limiting the world manufacture of drugs to the amounts needed for medical and scientific purposes. It established a Drug Supervisory Body to monitor the operations of the system. A group of manmade substances outside the scope of the 1931 Convention was brought under international law and control by the 1948 Protocol.

The 1936 Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs was the first to call for the severe punishment of illicit drug traffickers, but for a variety of reasons, this Convention was never fully implemented.

In 1946, the United Nations assumed the drug control functions and responsibilities formerly carried out by the League of Nations. The functions of the League's Advisory Committee were transferred to the United Nations Commission and a subsidiary body on Narcotic Drugs (CND), established in 1946 as a functional Commission of the Economic and Social Council. The CND remains the central policy-making body within the United Nations system for dealing in depth with all questions related to drug control. The main control body, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), was established by the 1961 Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which merged the previous bodies - the Permanent Control Board and the Drug Supervisory Body.

The 1953 Opium Protocol, which entered into force in 1963, was introduced to eliminate legal overproduction by controlling the amount of opium that could be stocked by individual States. Only seven countries - Bulgaria, Greece, India, Iran, Turkey, the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia - were authorized to produce opium for export.

The complexity and number of the legal agreements on narcotic drugs (which with the 1953 Protocol had reached nine) created the need for unification and simplification. Efforts in this direction culminated in the three current drug control Conventions that now govern the international drug control system. They represent a continuing quest to reconcile the differing medical, scientific, political, social and economic interests of an increasing number of participating countries as the number of substances continues to proliferate.

The three treaties, adopted under the aegis of the United Nations and now govern the international drug control system, require that Governments exercise control over production and distribution of narcotic and psychotropic substances, combat drug abuse and illicit trafficking, maintain the necessary administrative machinery and report to international organs on their actions.

Those treaties are: the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961, which established the INCB; that Convention as amended by the 1972 Protocol; the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances; and the 1988 United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

The United Nations helps countries find innovative ways of controlling the supply of and demand for drugs. The CND is the main policy-making body for all international drug control matters. The INCB strives to restrict the availability of drugs to medical and scientific purposes, prevent their diversion into illegal channels and combat illicit trafficking. All United Nations drug control activities are coordinated by the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), which was established in 1990. It provides leadership in international drug control, monitors trends in drug production, consumption and trafficking, and promotes the implementation of the treaties.

Fact: A recent UNDCP plant incorporates ground surveys, as well as sophisticated new satellite technologies, to monitor cultivation which will ensure that new opium poppy and coca bush crops do not replace those being eliminated.